“At the end of the second quarter of 2024, according to the information reported by the operators, the number of base stations installed in the national territory with 5G technology amounted to 10,368 stations. This represents a 4% increase in the number of phase stations compared to the number reported at the end of the previous quarter”, says the communications regulator in a report by ECO.

During this period, Vodafone joined NOS in providing 5G stations in all 308 municipalities in the country, leaving behind MEO, which is present in 305 municipalities. Mesão Frio, Pedrógão Grande, and Resende are the three municipalities where the Altice Portugal operator had still installed a single 5G station by the end of June.

Of the three main companies in the sector, MEO also continued to be the one with the fewest 5G stations installed (1,521) at the end of June, while Vodafone had 4,137 and NOS 4,710.

The scenario is very different when it comes to the previous mobile generation, where MEO comes in second place with 5,275 4G stations, close to Vodafone's 5,525, but ahead of NOS, which loses to its two competitors with less than 5,000 installed antennas.

Analysing by parish, Anacom highlights that 14% of the national territory does not have 5G stations, in an area that corresponds to around 8% of the national population.

However, the regulator points out that “a parish may not have any stations installed, but its territory may still have a certain area covered by a base station installed in a neighbouring parish”. “It should also be noted that the reference to 8% of the national population residing in parishes where there are no 5G stations cannot be interpreted as there being coverage of 92% of the national population”, the regulator also notes.

“Of the total number of low-density parishes (1,804 parishes), the proportion of those with 5G stations is 66% (1,188 parishes), while 616 parishes (34% of the total) do not have 5G stations”, states the quarterly report.

The three operators are at different stages of expanding their 5G coverage in the country. In the second quarter, Vodafone was the one that installed stations at the fastest rate (+8.4% compared to the previous quarter), followed by MEO (+2.9%). In turn, NOS only installed five stations (+0.1%).