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Portugal Telecom SGPS, S.A. ("PT") announces today the inauguration of its Data Centre in Covilhã.

PT's Data Centre is one of the largest, most efficient, and most ecological data centres in the world. PT's Data Centre, which occupies a total area of 75,500 sqm, is modular, composed of four blocks, and has capacity of up to 12,000 sqm of white space. The first block, which is being inaugurated today, has six rooms with 520 sqm and a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.25. PT has requested LEED certification - Platinum for the support services building and Gold for the Data Centre block. This solid PUE, compared to an average industry PUE of 1.88, will enable greater sustainability and higher competitiveness. The Data Centre's unique environmental framework allows the use of free cooling during 99% of the year. The usage of high security technology and infrastructure, which is designed to ensure an annual availability of 99.98%, granted a Tier III certification by the Uptime Institute. This investment will create 1,400 direct and indirect jobs and represents a Euro 90 million investment, including the first and second phases. With today's inauguration, PT's Data Centre network capacity, comprised of eight data centres, will increase from 14,000 to 26,000 sqm of white space, from 6,000 to 56,000 servers, and from 3 to 33 Pbytes of storage.

PT's Data Centre in Covilhã is a landmark investment, which to a great extent fulfils PT's technological transformation cycle, which began in 2008 with the nationwide launch of MEO, PT's successful pay-TV offer. PT believes that network is not a commodity and its structural competitive advantage is underpinned by its investments in technology, including: (1) a fibre transmission network that supports 100Gbps; (2) an FTTH (fibre to the home) access network with a coverage of 1.6 million households (which was distinguished with the award for best FTTH deployment and operation in 2012 by the FTTH Council Europe), and that already has a 23% penetration in homes passed and 28% in the pay-TV customer base; (3) a 4G-LTE network with a coverage of more than 90% of the Portuguese population, and (4) fibre mobile backhauling reaching 92% of base stations. The investment in technology and innovation has allowed PT to transform its offering with the launch of pay-TV and triple-play services. As a result, MEO achieved the leadership in triple-play only four years after its launch, with a 47% market share and a 40.4% market share in the pay-TV market. PT's transformation also included a focus on mobile data and content everywhere. Leveraging its technology leadership, PT has launched the first truly converged quadruple-play offer, M