Chart showing the split of fixed broadband accesses in Portugal by speed in the second quarter of 2026

Tech 11 September 2026

What speed is home internet in Portugal? As of this quarter, mostly a gigabit

Portugal closed the second quarter of 2026 with 4.9 million fixed broadband lines. Connections at 1 Gbps or faster overtook the 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps tier for the first time.

Something quiet happened in the regulator’s quarterly figures. At the end of June, fixed internet connections running at 1 Gbps or more made up 47.4% of the total, against 46.9% for those between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps. It is the first time the top tier has come out in front. For years it was the small slice. Now it is the biggest one.

The quarter in numbers

Portugal ended the second quarter with 4.9 million fixed broadband accesses, 102,000 more than a year earlier, a rise of 2.2%. The total grows slowly, which is what you expect in a country where coverage is largely built out. What moves is the mix.

Connections at 1 Gbps or faster grew 66.6% in twelve months. The remaining 5.7% of lines still sit below 100 Mbps, and that is the slice shrinking every quarter as copper comes out and fibre goes in.

Why it is happening now

It is not demand. Almost nobody wakes up needing a gigabit at home, and the things we actually use, 4K streaming included, run on a fraction of it. What changed is supply. Operators stopped selling the middle tiers as their headline product and started putting gigabit into mid-range bundles, often at the price 500 Mbps used to carry.

Anyone who renewed a contract in the past two years was probably upgraded without asking. That is how a national statistic flips without anyone noticing.

What to do with this

Two practical things. Check which tier you are on — it is on the bill, and there is a fair chance you are paying for a speed that is no longer your provider’s best offer. And remember that contracted speed and real speed are different animals, particularly over Wi-Fi, where the router is usually the bottleneck.

If the conclusion is to switch provider, the rules are moving in your favour: the regulator has a draft in hand that makes the incoming provider responsible for the switch and sets compensation for service interruptions. The full quarterly figures live on ANACOM’s statistics portal.

By Oliver Grant

Chart: Tugadaily · data from ANACOM

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