Altice-backed PT Portugal (MEO) has achieved download speeds of 1.5Gbps in a Lisbon-based 5G trial, which used 3.6GHz spectrum and a pre-commercial 5G terminal from Huawei. Speaking after the demonstration, chief executive Alexandre Fonseca said that he foresees a commercial 5G launch occurring in Portugal in 2019-2020, but cautioned that wider take-up of the service is unlikely to happen until 2021-2022.
TeleGeography notes that Vodafone became the first Portuguese cellco to test 5G back in October 2017. The British-owned cellco achieved downlink transmission speeds of up to 20Gbps in a 5G trial carried out in association with Swedish vendor Ericsson.
Going forward, the National Communications Authority (Autoridade Nacional de Comunicacoes, ANACOM) expects to stage a 5G spectrum auction by mid-2020, with the 700MHz band (‘second digital dividend’) expected to come into play to underpin the operators’ future network ambitions.