Anacom, the National Communications Authority, tested the quality of the municipality's mobile networks, between the 8th and 17th of November, and found that some locations, namely in the city centre, “are very good in terms of mobile communications”.

In rural areas, the situation is different, namely along the border, where "in many areas" populations can only access mobile calls and Internet through the Spanish network, allowed for by international roaming, which currently does not entail additional costs for the consumer.

The Anacom study detected, however, two villages, Guadramil and Petisqueira, where “there is no mobile network coverage available, neither from Portuguese national operators, nor through international roaming”.

In these locations, it is not even possible to call 112 because there is no signal and in others, even with a network signal, it is not possible to establish a connection or it goes down due to poor quality.

The municipality of Bragança has been alerting the Government to these situations, but, according to the mayor of Bragança, Hernâni Dias, the problem is at the level of operators who are not willing to find solutions because they do not see a profit among a few inhabitants.

The mayor explained that the chamber, in partnership with the parish councils, has been trying to negotiate directly with the operators, offering to exempt them “even from the payment of fees for installing antennas to be able to serve rural areas”.

“Even so, they haven't solved the problems. It is very difficult for operators to do this work in rural areas because it probably does not compensate them from a financial point of view for the investment they have to make, therefore, they do not do this work and hence the damage we have today in our rural communities", he stated.