Meo Outages in Central Portugal: 5 Councils Offline, Free Data and Credits

The Portugal telecom operator Meo has singled out five municipalities – with Leiria at the top of the list – where storm-related damage is keeping thousands of households offline, a setback that could last through the weekend and trigger compensation claims.

Why This Matters

• Voice and data disruptions: Landlines, mobile calls, and fibre Internet are intermittently down in the affected areas.

• 72-hour restoration window: Under ANACOM rules, operators must fix outages within 3 days or start paying automatic credits on next month’s bill.

• Emergency services priority: Local fire brigades and hospitals are now on backup microwave links to keep 112 and hospital networks running.

• DIY work-arounds: Residents can reroute calls over Wi-Fi and request free extra mobile data packages.

Where the Network Collapsed

According to Altice Portugal’s field-engineering bulletin issued late Wednesday night, hurricane-force winds snapped dozens of aerial fibre lines across central Portugal. The five municipalities with the densest cluster of simultaneous faults are Leiria, Pombal, Marinha Grande, Ourém, and Alcobaça. In Leiria alone, Meo counted "close to 14,000" service tickets by noon.

The company’s technicians are prioritising primary schools, health centres, and industrial estates first. Rural hamlets connected by overhead cables will be "last but not forgotten," Meo spokesperson Ana Pereira told us, estimating “full normalisation by Sunday night – weather permitting.”

What This Means for Residents

Portugal’s consumer-protection code gives telecom customers the right to a prorated refund when service is unavailable for more than 24 hours. You do not need to file paperwork: the credit should appear automatically on the next invoice. Still, keep screenshots of router logs or phone screenshots as evidence if a dispute arises.

While waiting for repairs, you can:

Enable Wi-Fi Calling in your phone’s settings; calls piggyback on any working broadband (even a neighbour’s).

Request a temporary data top-up – Meo is granting 10 GB free upon SMS "TEMPDATA" to 12345 for users inside the five hardest-hit councils.

Use public hot-spots in town halls and libraries; Meo has opened its "Meo WiFi" network without login within a 3-km radius of each affected parish.

The Bigger Picture

Telecom infrastructure in Portugal is 78 % buried, yet the remaining overhead last-mile cables are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather. The Portuguese Meteorology Institute forecasts 11 more "very stormy" days this winter – double the seasonal average. Parliament is debating a bill that would oblige operators to bury critical last-mile fibre by 2030, but industry lobbyists warn the cost could top €1 B.

Leiria’s mayor, Gonçalo Lopes, has already asked the Portugal Civil Protection Authority to map telecom dependencies into firefighting and flood-response drills, noting that “climate events are hitting the network as often as forest fires used to.”

Altice’s Repair Game-Plan

• 250 field technicians redeployed from Lisbon and Porto

• 60 portable generators to keep street cabinets powered where the electricity grid also failed

• Drone-assisted line inspection to spot broken fibre on pine forest corridors faster than on-foot patrols

• A new customer-alert portal at https://meo.pt/avarias with real-time restoration ETAs (site is zero-rated, no data charges)

Impact on Expats & Investors

Digital nomads clustered along the Silver Coast (many rely on fibre to work remotely for US or UK clients) may need to reroute through coworking spaces in Coimbra or Lisbon. Property managers renting out short-stay lets in Nazaré and Fátima should update guests pre-arrival and, if necessary, provide portable 4G routers. Under Portugal’s short-term rental law, lack of advertised broadband can justify a partial refund to guests.

What Happens Next

ANACOM inspectors will verify whether Meo respected the legally mandated minimum-service obligations. If not, fines range from €5,000 to €3 M, money that typically goes to the national Consumer Fund. A preliminary inspection is scheduled for Monday.

For ordinary users, the key takeaway is simple: keep records, claim the automatic credit if your line remains dark beyond Saturday, and use the temporary data perks Meo is offering now.

Reporting by a Contributing Editor based in Coimbra, with additional data from the Portugal Meteorology Institute and ANACOM public filings.