The effects of the delayed liberalization of direct international interconnection of mobile operators will be on the second GSM operator and, whenever they are licensed in the near future, the future DCS-1800 operators. The possibility of interconnecting direct with other operators would be a significant factor in facilitating their establishment and development in the Portuguese market. Moreover, the additional implementation period will also affect foreign carriers, since it will make more cumbersome and costly the handing-over of traffic for call termination by the Portuguese mobile operators.
