MEO is a mobile and fixed telecommunications service and brand from Altice Portugal (formerly Portugal Telecom), managed by MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia. The service was piloted in Lisbon in 2006 and was later extended to Porto and Castelo Branco.

History

MEO in its current form was founded in 2007 after the separation of PT Comunicações and PT Multimédia (later ZON Multimédia). While PT Multimédia employed coaxial cables, after separation, MEO started making use of copper cables. The television service supplied by MEO within the copper cable network is served on the ADSL line. Telecomunicações Móveis Nacionais (TMN), Portugal’s first and largest mobile network operator, was later integrated into the MEO brand in 2014 after two of TMN’s shareholders, Telefones de Lisboa e Porto (TLP) and Marconi Comunicações Internacionais (the Portuguese operations of the UK-based Marconi Company) were acquired by Portugal Telecom in 1994 and 2002 respectively.

The commercial launch of the ADSL2+ service took place in June 2007. The satellite service began in April 2008, using the Hispasat satellite, soon followed by the FTTH service. The ADSL2+ and FTTH offers reached across Portugal and included broadband Internet services (at up to 400Mbit/s) as well as a telephone service.

In May 2009, PT Comunicações announced, after Terrestrial Digital Television (TDT) transmissions had started, that the triple play service was also available with fiber optic speeds can achieve 400 Mbit/s.

Another service relies on TDT, MEO TDT, which is included in the 3G plates service that is captured through the mobile internet signals from TDT. This service included one High Definition (HD) channel and the five main Portuguese channels: RTP1, RTP2, SIC, TVI e ARTV. MEO TDT service also allows some of the advantages found on the ADSL and Fiber Optic service (pause, record…).

In July 2010, Portugal Telecom informed that MEO had surpassed 700 thousand clients.

In November 2011, MEO achieved one million subscriptions. In January 2014, MEO and TMN became a single brand, MEO Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia S.A..

In 2013, MEO launched a quadruple play service called M4O that in addition to the functionalities already referred has added the mobile phone, in a converged strategic logic. In July 2014, MEO launched a bundle which also includes the offering of mobile internet, called M5O.