Thursday, August 27, 2015

Brazilian government wants fiber in 90 percent of the country

The Brazilian government wants to roll out fiber optic technology across 90 percent of the country's cities. Current fiber optic coverage is concentrated in 4 percent of Brazilian cities.
By Angelica Mari,Brazil Tech

Without specifying how long the project might take to complete, telecommunications secretary at the Ministry of Communications Maximiliano Martinhão told delegates at an event promoted by the Brazilian Senate that the ambition is part of the National Broadband Plan.

About 80 percent of fiber provision is concentrated in 4 percent of Brazilian cities, the secretary said, adding that the fiber roll out should initially focus on expanding the existing networks.


"Doubling the average [Internet] speed could add 0.3 percentage points to the GDP. Increasing the average speed by five-fold can increase the average monthly household income up to 5.7 percent," Martinhão said.


Internet speed in Brazil lags behind rest of the world: the country's average connection speed goes up, but other South American such as Chile and Uruguay neighbors fared better.

As well as the government intentions to expand the fiber network across the country, other major projects are underway to improve the Internet connectivity in the country: a Brazil-Angola submarine fiber optic cable will be ready in 2017 while a Google-sponsored undersea link will connect Brazil to the US and is due to commence operations in 2016.