NOS first operator to launch 5G

The Portuguese telecoms company Nos has announced that it is the first of Portugal’s ‘big three’ (Altice and Vodafone being the others) to obtain the licence to launch its commercial 5G offer – although Portugal was the second to last country in the EU to get 5G technology because of the time it took for its 5G auction to be completed.

Nos made the announcement on Friday when its CEO Miguel Almeida said that the fifth generation mobile network was now available for customers who have signed up to the “Max Without Limits’ tariff package.
In another communiqué sent to the press, the regulator Anacom confirmed that it had delivered the first 5G licence to Nos and that with the right to use, the company “could begin the commercialisation of the frequencies it has purchased”.
The first 5G tariff package in Portugal starts at €49.99 per month. On Friday the company announced a Black Friday campaign offering its new 5G customers the package from €39.99 a month.
Rival company Altice Portugal, through its brand MEO, is accepting pre-subscriptions to 5G for €30, an amount which will be added to the monthly bill of the package the customer is signed up for.
On Thursday, Anacom said that 5G licences had already been paid for by the market players Dense Air, Nos and Vodafone. The fact that MEO is not on the list of those having paid has not gone unnoticed in the sector.
And the announcement that Nos was declared the “winner of the auction” last month shows that the company us trying to position itself as the market leader in the 5G segment.
It is still too early to say if it manages to do so. But, Portugal is the second to last country in the EU with only Lithuania now preparing to hold its 5G auction.
On 8 November, the online news service ECO said that it would be difficult for the various players involved to align with the various deadlines, and the fact that 5G has arrived by the end of November shows the speed at which both the regulator and companies have acted.
Despite the news, however, Nos shares fell 1.35% last Friday, listed at €3.36 after a day’s trading in which the markets were hard hit by the discovery of the new coronavirus variant Omicron.