In one year the 4G can start operating in Brazil for real

Anatel: In one year the 4G can start operating in Brazil for real

While in Europe the fifth generation of mobile internet is already being talked about, in Brazil 4G finally begins to receive momentum. At a press conference, the president of Anatel informed that starting this Wednesday, April 8, 2015, the countdown to the end of analogue broadcasts on open TV will begin. For those who do not remember, analog TV occupies the frequency of 700MHz, used worldwide for the provision of fourth generation mobile services. This means that we still need a year for the quality of the national 4G to be superior, but we are on our way.

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Anatel: In one year, 4G can start operating in Brazil! / © ANDROIDPIT

From 2.5GHz to 700MHz radio frequency

With the digitization of the open TV signal, the 700 MHz radio frequency will be used to expand the availability of the fourth generation telephone and internet service (4G / LTE) in Brazil, which since 2013 has been provided on the 2.5 GHz radio frequency. An attempt to accelerate this process occurred during the Confederations Cup, in 2013, when the Communications Minister of the time, Paulo Bernardo, desperately tried to anticipate the completion of the digitalization of the Brazilian television system, to release the use of the TV frequency band analogue so that operators could offer 4G in time for tourists to be able to use it during the 2013 football event. Which fortunately did not happen.

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Two years later, Anatel offers a schedule for switching off the analogue signal from open TV that runs until 2018, so that the whole country will go through this process. At this time, residents of Rio Verde (GO) and the Federal District region will begin to be notified of the start of the countdown to the end of analogue broadcasts on open TV. In 2016, the Federal District and eleven other cities in Minas Gerais and Goiás form the first major region expected to be shut down. According to the Ministry of Communications Ordinance, the end of analogue transmissions in this region is scheduled for April 3, 2016. Also in the same year, in addition to the Federal District and these eleven nearby cities, the metropolitan regions of São Paulo (May), Belo Horizonte (June), Goiânia (August) and Rio de Janeiro (November).

There is still no set date for operators to start implementing the new frequency for 4G, however, according to Rodrigo Zerbone, adviser to the regulatory body, «disconnected Brasília, for example, a year later is the deadline for 4G to enter operation». Thus, with the end of the analogue TV transmission, internet operators will have one year to put the expansion of the 4G network into operation. Also according to Zerbone, these deadlines can be reduced if companies assess that there are technical conditions.

I have been using the fourth generation internet for over a year, and I assure you that the only chance for Brazilians to have a quality mobile internet service in the country is by expanding the 700MHz radio frequency to 4G. Now it is enough to know if the operators will have enough time to invest in this implementation in time for the country not to be further behind in the global expansion of the mobile internet of ever faster data transfer speeds.

In your opinion, do we really have the start of investment by operators in the 700MHz radio frequency for 4G in the country in the period of one year defined by the government?