This beautiful, amazing country, Portugal, located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula, represents a developed country with the world's 19th-highest quality-of-life. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east, the country also posses the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, the wonderful nature of which are the dream of any tourist. Madeira, meantime, is also attractive for foreign companies as a tax-haven by its Free Trade Zone and Off-Shore Financial Centre.

Portugal’s telecom market is a mid-sized but advanced enough, modern and flexible, with broadband penetration that’s currently above the EU average, while Internet usage is one of the highest in Europe.

With the wide range of Internet services providers operating on the Portuguese ICT market, the variety of Internet connection services are available.

ADSL internet connection has been available in the country since 2000. But until 2002 it was not popular amid the public. ADSL has started gaining popularity since 2002 mainly thanks to increasing competition from service providers, that helped meanwhile to pull down connection prices.

ADSL services are currently offered by several operators, with the dominance of two large ISPs Portugal Telecom, former market monopoly, and SonaeCom.

The landline infrastructure of Portugal Telecom, the largest telecommunications company, covers all territory, making it the only operator that can offer direct service anywhere in the country, owing to company’s previous monopoly status. Portugal Telecom utilizes different brands to segment their ADSL service, among others SAPO for the residential market and Telepac for the small business market. In 2006 the company settles its ADSL2+ service, adding a 24 Mbit/s speed grade service in a move to overtake to competitor SonaeCom that had been offering ADSL2+ speed grades for several months.

SonaeCom, has been operating since 1999, soon after the government opened the telecommunications market to competition. The company started by renting Portugal Telecom's lines in order to offer their voice service to customers, but a bit later started laying their own infrastructure and can now offer direct service in the main metropolitan areas. SonaeCom also uses different brands to segment their ADSL offer, these include Clix for the residential market and Novis for the professional market. Taking benefits from the increased bandwidth provided by their ADSL2+ network, SonaeCom announced in June 2006 the launch of their IPTV service, dubbed SmarTV, that let the operator offer so called Triple Play service to customers in select areas.

The other ADSL operators are also successfully operating on the in Portugal’s telecom market, like followings:

• ArTelecom
• Claranet
• Oni
• Redvo
• Tele2
• Vodafone

Cable connection in Portugal is mainly delivered by the providers listed below:

• Bragatel
• Cabovisão S.A.
• Netcabo
• NetMadeira
• TVTEL Comunicações, S.A.
• ZON

  Portugal’s Internet code top-level domain (ccTLD) is .pt, managed by Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN). Two years registration agreement is relatively cheap, just $99 for both .pt and .com.pt. Notably, there a no any special restrictions or requirements for the registration under the domain.

However, the registration directly at second-level is available with some restrictions. Collective People, individual entrepreneurs, liberal professionals, public entities and any person request of trademark can only be registered. The name must match the owner's name or the trademark or business name. So, Portugal has the following second-level domains:

• .com.pt - no restrictions; online registration
• .edu.pt - education
• .gov.pt - Government of Portugal
• .int.pt - international organizations or diplomatic missions in Portugal
• .net.pt - telecommunications providers
• .nome.pt - individuals (nome is Portuguese for name)
• .org.pt - Non-profit organizations
• .publ.pt - publications

  Meantime, .com.pt domain name is the easiest to get as there are no restrictions on naming or on local presence. 

  Apart for .gov.pt, Portuguese subdomains were slow to catch on, because many people had already registered under .pt when the new ones became available. So, the majority of companies still prefer to use a .pt having got used to their names. Some contradictions also still exist. For instance, Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) website is www.min-nestrangeiros.pt, instead of logically supposed www.mne.gov.pt.

Nevertheless, FCCN heavily promotes .com.pt subdomain registration. So, by now the subdomain now has a large number of registrations and active Web sites, while the others, like .nome.pt, as for individuals are still very uncommon.

As for the level of ICT skills of employees, Portugal is in the bottom five when it comes to employees using the internet at work, according to Economist Intelligence Unit data. However, the situation is getting better every year.

A fully integrated part of metropolitan Portugal is Madeira has the majority of countries e-commerce and offshore activities concentrated. All companies incorporated in Madeira are Portuguese companies governed by Portuguese law and are entitled to all benefits arising by reason thereof. As a major offshore jurisdiction with many thousands of offshore enterprises installed, including it is only a matter of time before Madeira becomes a centre of e-commerce activity. Next time will consider the ICT and e-commerce level of progress of the Portugal’s Autonomous region, Madeira, as an independent jurisdiction.

Portugal, being an EU member, has a great opportunity to become one of the ICT and e-commerce leaders. Especially the chance to reach leadership is arisen by success of Madeira’s offshore jurisdiction and Free Trade Zone as one of the most important regions of the country.