Portugal Telecom today said its Portugal operations will start sharing fiber network with Vodafone in a bid to reduce costs and expand coverage.

The agreement between Vodafone and MEO, through PT Portugal, SGPS, includes sharing of dark fiber in nearly 900 thousand homes, in which each party shares approximately 450 thousand homes.

They signed a 25-years contract for the acquisition of Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRU), said PT in a statement on Monday.

The telecom infrastructure sharing model allows MEO to reach additional 450 thousand homes with fiber to the home technology (FTTH), increasing the potential penetration of its products and services to retail consumers and enterprises.

Though they are sharing the capacity, both telecoms will maintain autonomy and flexibility in designing their retail offers, including the provision of RF (analogue) TV signal, guaranteeing the confidentiality of customer information.

MEO will continue to focus on a convergence strategy for the consumer segment, through M4O offer, and PT Empresas will continue to focus on a cloud strategy, anchored on its network of data centers, for enterprises.

PT recently started focusing more on its FTTH network that now will reach 2.1 million homes.

Its 4G LTE network, which offers speeds up to 150 Mbps and covers 93 percent of the Portuguese population.