Communications
- Telephone land lines
- Telephone land lines charges
- Mobile telephone lines
- Internet connectivity
- Local area wireless connection
- V.O.I.P. voice over internet protocol
- P.S.T.N. public switched telephone network
Land Lines
Portugal Telecom are the providers of the infrastructure that makes up the traditional telecommunication system in Portugal. They are also active in Brazil and some African countries. They are keen to connect evan the remotest part of Portugal. At present they will connect you for around 130 euros (including phone). They have a complicated pricing structure that can be seen here at PT land line charges . Thanks to Iain and Hugh for translating and working it out
As in the U. K they rent out some of the lines and now there are now quite some other providers that offer various deals. The principal players are:-
Mobile Networks
There are 3 cell phone providers Vodafone, TMN and Optimus. All 3 provide good coverage in most areas of Portugal.
Each have their own deals depending on your usage. Generally vodafone and TMN charges are around the same while Optimus works out cheaper for you to phone out but more expensive for the others to phone you.
Contract or pay as you go? Similar to the U.K if you have a Portuguese address fiscal number and an utilities bill you can have a contract. The cost of the calls are cheaper and there are various deals like you can have so much free time between certain hours and on the week end. This also works for phoning international mobiles.
The more you use the more points you are given. these can be exchanged for the latest phones or "free" call time. Be carefully to use up your points otherwise you will loose them.
If your UK mobile is unblocked you can use any provider chip in Portugal. The cheapest I have heard to unblock a phone in Portugal is 30 euros. U. K it can be half of this.
Internet
Despite an onslaught of advertising broadband (ADSL) coverage is not as good as in the U. K. You have to be within 7 km of an exchange. PT did have a page where you can check if your phone line whould be able to recieve ADSL unforntunatly I can no longer find it on their site. Below is a list of some of the Internet Service Providers
G3 cards are an option if you are in area of bad coverage from PT or if you like to move around with your lap top. Coverage differs between operator check these here
Local Area Wireless Conections
As Central Portugal's offices are slightly out of the range of the limits of PT's ADSL, with the help of PSAND ltd, we have set up a wireless link to our neighbors (300 meters) who have a connection. As this technology is not widely available we had to do it on a home made Blue Peter bases using old whisky cans (great excuse).
It works perfectly well, although it gets a bit flakey when the wind is up. For on hand information on how you can set up a mid range wireless link (up to 5km) Check out this very useful web page. http://flakey.info/antenna/waveguide/
V.O.I.P.
A way of using the internet to make phone calls either to other computers for free, or to mobiles or land lines at local rates. More details.....Skype
P.S.T.N.
A way of switching between digital networks to reduce the cost to providers. Costs to the UK from Portugal from as little as .05 euros/min. More details..... call2