Business Internet & Enterprise Connectivity in Portugal
Lisbon is one of Europe's most important submarine cable landing points — 17 cables today, 20 by 2026, including Equiano (Google, to West Africa and South Africa), EllaLink (to Brazil and West Africa), 2Africa (Meta, to 18 African and Middle Eastern countries), and the forthcoming Nuvem cable to the United States. Portugal isn't a peripheral market. It's a transatlantic and Africa gateway that most enterprise buyers treat like a standard Western European office requirement.
How we deliver in Portugal
We deliver across Lisbon and Porto via Colt, MEO, NOS, and Vodafone. For clients with both Portuguese and Spanish requirements, we manage both markets under the same programme — particularly relevant given the \[Pisces cable\](/countries/spain) connecting Ireland-France-Portugal-Spain, currently under development. Lead time: 35 working days via Colt on-net in Lisbon.
The Lisbon-to-\[London\](/countries/uk) and Lisbon-to-\[Frankfurt\](/countries/germany) capacity circuits we deliver run via Colt's transatlantic and European network — important for enterprise clients routing capacity between Portugal and Northern European cloud regions.
Carriers, infrastructure and routing
MEO (Altice Portugal) is the market leader across fixed, broadband, and business services — offering 10Gbps symmetrical business internet. NOS is a strong competitor with aggressive pricing (1Gbps from €30/month for broadband) and no planned price increases in 2025. Vodafone Portugal rounds out the main carrier picture.
Colt has a substantial presence in Portugal — fibre Metropolitan Area Networks in both Lisbon and Porto connecting 780+ buildings and 12 data centres. As Colt's number one global partner, we deliver through that infrastructure in both cities with the same delivery standard we maintain across the rest of Europe.
Lisbon data centres are strategically co-located near submarine cable landing stations at Carcavelos, Sesimbra, and Seixal — providing ultra-low latency to international cable infrastructure. Operators include Claranet, ONI, Equinix, and AtlasEdge. Digital Realty is building a new subsea data centre in Lisbon, expected operational early 2027. The Start Campus project in Sines is developing what could become one of the world's largest data centre campuses, powered by renewable energy.
Porto is a secondary hub — geographic diversity from Lisbon — with approximately 10 carriers across the metro area, though major cloud on-ramps (AWS, Azure, Google) are in Lisbon, with Porto traffic typically extending via private wave connections.
Delivery and what to check
Lead time: 35 working days via Colt on-net in Lisbon.
How a circuit gets delivered
Address check
On-net carrier checks
Fibre planning
Fibre routes and building entry points checked
Internal routing
Path to floor, room and rack checked
Carrier validation
All carrier orders validated against requirement
Execution
Order signed
Order pre-validation
Customer order validated against requirement
Validation
Order validated by carrier
Handover
Circuit live and handed over
Portugal questions
Why is Lisbon significant for international connectivity?
17 submarine cables today, 20 by 2026. Lisbon lands cables to the Americas (Nuvem, EllaLink), Africa (Equiano, 2Africa, Medusa), and Europe. It's one of Western Europe's primary cable landing hubs.
Which carriers do you use?
Colt (primary, 780+ buildings in Lisbon and Porto), MEO, NOS, and Vodafone Portugal.
Are there cloud on-ramps in Lisbon?
Yes — AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are accessible in Lisbon. Porto doesn't have direct on-ramps; traffic routes to Lisbon.
How long does delivery take?
35 working days via Colt on-net in Lisbon. Porto: slightly longer.