Opening an office in Portugal: network and IT ready on day one

• Portugal is attracting more and more international companies And technology is among the first practical hurdles.
• The internet connection takes longest It must be ordered weeks in advance.
• Having someone on the ground Removes the need to coordinate suppliers remotely and across time zones.
• DataRoad already acts as the local IT team For North American and European companies based in Portugal, speaking English with head office.

Because the internet arrives late and nobody on the ground knows where to start. The sequence is always similar: lease signed, first employees hired, and nowhere to plug in a laptop. Dedicated fibre takes weeks, the operators are unfamiliar and the proposals arrive in Portuguese.

Meanwhile, the group's IT lead is several hours ahead or behind. We see this scenario in companies arriving in Lisbon and Cascais, and it is avoided when someone in Portugal takes ownership from day one.

1. Dedicated internet: ordered the day the lease is signed, ideally with redundancy: a second operator or 5G/Starlink backup.
2. Cabling: while the space is still empty, it is the moment to install certified structured cabling from scratch, once and properly.
3. Business Wi-Fi: a business wireless network sized for constant video calls with head office.
4. Security: firewall, a protected link to the group network and rules matching the global policy.
5. Local support: someone who answers in English, during office hours, and comes on site whenever needed.

The group sets the strategy. Getting the network running in Portugal is the job of those who are here.

Anyone trying to coordinate a Portuguese subsidiary's technology from Austin, Berlin or London ends up choosing operators blindly, directing installers by email and only noticing failures once the team has already stopped.

With a partner in Portugal, everything is reversed. The partner negotiates with the landlord and the operator, receives the equipment, installs, tests and reports to head office through a single point of contact. The company still makes the decisions: it simply no longer has to be present to make them.

DataRoad - IT Services and Consulting built the Portuguese office of ReStream, a US company based in Cascais, from scratch: wired infrastructure, Wi-Fi 6, firewall and internet redundancy via Starlink. It is the kind of project where we take on everything, from network infrastructure to managed IT services for international companies, with all communication and reports written in English.

DataRoad welcomes companies from other countries to Portugal and works alongside embassies.

Preparing an office in Portugal? Talk to us before you sign with an operator. Request a no-commitment proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support. Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.