
Telecommunication in Portugal
Compared to the United States, Portugal is at the forefront of the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +351, there were a total of 17.79 million connections in 2021. Among them were 12.48 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.2 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 3.75 million webhosts, Portugal is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 228,378 of these, or about 6 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Portugal
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 120.52 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Portugal ranks 21st in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 85.50 Mbit/second (20th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Portugal comes 31st with a download speed of 59.23 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 12 Mbit was only enough for 46th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in December 2022 from 178 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in Portugal from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in Portugal 1999 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | Portugal Total | Portugal percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 4.31 m | 41.78 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 5.32 m | 51.51 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 12.48 m | 120.83 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |