Use > How to take advantage of your service and how to deal with any difficulties

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Do operators have to provide specific levels of quality of service ?

The law does not specify minimum levels of quality of service. 
 
However, contracts must specify: 
  • the maximum time that will be taken by the operator to complete initial connection of the service and to repair any faults;
  • the compensation due to the customer for non-compliance with these time limits;
  • the compensation due to the customer in case the operator's technician fails to appear on a day scheduled with the customer to install the service or repair faults. 
Operators can also define other quality of service levels in their contracts, such as the maximum time to respond to a complaint.

What should I do if the service fail?

If services are unavailable for more than 24 hours (consecutive or accumulated per billing period) and the fault is the responsibility of the operator, the operator must credit your account with an amount equivalent to the price of the service during the period it was unavailable.

The 24-hour period is counted from the moment the operator becomes aware of the situation or it has been communicated to the operator by you.

Payment of this amount must be initiated by the operator (it does not depend on a user's request) and must be made by crediting the service balance (prepaid services) or crediting the next bill (postpaid services). If you are no longer a customer of the operator, the refund must be made by bank transfer or cheque within 30 days from the end of the contract.

If services remain unavailable, after being reported to the operator, for a period longer than 15 days, the user has the right to cancel the contract at no cost.

The operator must also reimburse you for the costs incurred in reporting the fault, for example the cost of a telephone call to report the fault.

In summary:

What should I do if the service fail?

What should I do if the service I contracted has no coverage?

If you cannot receive the service due to lack of coverage, you can cancel the contract and ask the operator to refund what you have already paid. 

Although operators generally offer good levels of coverage and network performance throughout the country, there may be specific locations where the service has lower quality or cannot be used at all, whether in outdoors or in interior spaces (for example, inside the house, in garages, etc.).

If you detect any failure in mobile network coverage by any of the operators, you should report the problem to the operator and ask them what measures are in place or are being studied to resolve the situation.

Alternatively, find out from different operators about the levels of coverage they offer in your area of residence so that you can choose the one that best meets your needs. You don't need to change your mobile phone number, just ask for portability (see question How can I request number portability?

ANACOM provides a tool GEO.ANACOM which you can use to check coverage of fixed, mobile and satellite networks at a specific location or address in Portugal.

What should I do if I'm not getting the Internet speed stated in the contract?

The contract summary must contain information about speeds (see question What information should be included in my contract?).
 
ANACOM provides a speed measuring tool NET.mede which you can use to check the speed of your Internet access. The information obtained allows you to question the operator, in an informed manner, about the quality of the service being provided. 

Attention: Internet speed (fixed and mobile) is not constant, as there are variables that affect actual performance and experience when using the service at any given time (e.g. load and location of the server on the network, computer memory and processing capacity, viruses, WiFi or cable connection type).