Portugal's regulator wants your new broadband provider to pay €23 for every day you are left offline
ANACOM's draft rules on switching internet providers close for comment on Friday. They hand the whole process to the incoming company and carry a €5,750 ceiling that is already law for phone numbers.
If you have ever switched broadband in Portugal, you may know the gap. The old line is cut, the new one is not up yet, and the two companies spend the week pointing at each other while you tether off your phone. Nobody is responsible, so nobody pays.
ANACOM wants to close that gap. The regulator has a draft regulation on changing internet access providers out for public consultation, and comments close this Friday, 11 September. The core of it is a shift in who does the work: you make the request to the new company, and the new company deals with the old one. You stop being the messenger between two firms that would rather not talk.
What happens when a switch goes wrong
The detail that travelled was the money. A compensation ceiling of €5,750 sounds like a jackpot, and on its own it tells you almost nothing.
It is worth knowing where the figure comes from, because it is not new. That ceiling has existed since last November, for phone number portability. It sits in Regulation no. 38/2025, published in the Diário da República on 9 January last year and in force since 9 November: €23 per number for each day your service is interrupted, capped at €5,750 per request. The same daily rate applies if your number is moved to another company without you asking.
Do the division and the ceiling stops being mysterious. €5,750 divided by €23 is 250. The cap describes a fault that ran for 250 consecutive days, which happens to nobody. What happens to plenty of people is the week without service, and a week is worth €161.
The same regulation sets two more payments that almost no customer knows about. A delay past the agreed date is worth €3 per number for each full day. A missed engineer visit that has to be rebooked is worth €10. In both cases the money has to reach you within 30 days of the event, without you having to chase it.
Why it matters this week
If the draft survives the consultation, the regime that protects you when you move a mobile number will also protect you when you move the internet at home. It is an extension rather than an invention, which is exactly why the number matches the existing one to the cent.
Anyone can respond, not just the industry. Comments go to reg.mudanca@anacom.pt until Friday, after which ANACOM weighs what it received and publishes a final decision.
The regulator has been busy in this corner. It fined NOS €350,000 for changing 821,641 contracts without telling customers properly, and it is still tracking fixed-line coverage in a country where 1,967 places are waiting for fibre. Switching is the missing piece. Choice is not worth much if changing your mind costs you a week offline and costs the company that failed you nothing at all.
By Oliver Grant
Chart: Tugadaily, from Regulation no. 38/2025
