Press Releases
Telecel Announces Official Allocation of GSM 1800 Frequencies
Portugal’s Secretary of State of Housing and Communications has officially allocated 30 additional frequencies in the 1800 MHz band to Telecel, which had been requested by the company in March, 1997.
Soon, in addition to offering service in the 900 MHz bandwidth, Telecel will also operate its mobile terrestrial GSM service in the 1800 MHz bandwidth, and will shortly begin commercially offering dual-band handsets which will allow Customers to receive service in either band 900 MHz or 1800 MHz.
Telecel’s current Customers, who have mobile telephones that only operate in the 900 MHz frequency, will not be negatively impacted, as they will keep all of the same functionality and quality of mobile service offered by Telecel. Therefore, they will not need to be concerned with any substitution of their existing handset.
The GSM 1800 will be used to increase the capacity of the network where it is considered to be needed to meet the growth of new customers, mainly in the urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto, and will not be used to reinforce geographic coverage, which will continue to be done by GSM 900.
Telecel will continue to invest in one of its main differentiating factors of its strategy: the network coverage and quality offered to its customers.