Bolsonaro signs 5G contracts with carriers

President Jair Bolsonaro signed, this Tuesday (7), the authorization contracts of the ten operators that won the 5G auction at the beginning of November with the promise of investing R$ 42 billion to massify the mobile internet in the country. However, during the event, which took place at the Planalto Palace, Bolsonaro spoke little about the new telephone technology and focused his efforts on praising his government.

The Minister of Communications, Fábio Faria (PSD-RN), also used the speech to promote Bolsonaro’s government. He said that, for the first time, public schools will be connected — something that did not happen under the PT government.

“almost all of them [escolas] they don’t have internet or they have low quality internet,” said the minister. “I have already received requests from opposition deputies [para novas conexões]. Of the 85 thousand schools, 75 thousand will have 5G. They [deputados] they were fighting because they didn’t make it in the PT government [conectar as escolas]. They succeeded in the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. Jair Bolsonaro is going to connect the schools, because the PT did not connect.”

However, since the 3G technology of 2008, telephone auctions have forced operators to connect public schools. The great difficulty for the teles was to get the Ministry of Education to present a reliable list of schools and addresses to be included in the program. This problem, according to operators, still persists.

In the 5G edict, the connection of schools was not a mandatory investment, as the government believed during the announcement.

This program became a counterpart during the discussions on the rules of the notice in the TCU (Court of Accounts of the Union) after pressure from the Parliamentary Education Front.

Faria feared that by allowing changes to the notice for the inclusion of schools, there would be further delay in the auction date, which had already been postponed twice.

The only way to make this program viable was to include the connection of schools as a counterpart for operators that purchased the 26 GHz (gigahertz) band, whose maximum value was set at R$ 6.6 billion.

At that time, it was already known that there would be few interested in this frequency due to the high costs involved in the commercial operation.

This was confirmed at the auction. This range only received offers of R$ 3.1 billion, resources that will be fully allocated to the school connection program – less than half of the expected amount.

The government’s concern with keeping the auction date is explained by the political interest in kicking off the provision of the service in July of next year, in the middle of the electoral campaign.

In his speech, Bolsonaro highlighted that operators will already be selling packages in capitals from July next year.

Faria drew attention to the connection of more than 35 thousand kilometers of federal highways, another investment counterpart.

This was a plea by the minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio de Freitas, who is expected to run for the government of São Paulo. Truck drivers are an important support category for the Bolsonaro government.

The president thanked the minister of TCU, Raimundo Carrero, who was the rapporteur of the 5G process. Carrero maintained practically all the rules for the auction defined by Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) radically contradicting the position of the court’s technical area, which pointed out several irregularities in the proposal.

Bolsonaro thanked Carrero, who was present at the event, who will now be Brazil’s ambassador to Portugal. With the transfer, Carrero anticipates the mandatory retirement that is given at 75 years of age. With that, a new vacancy opens up in the TCU, whose indication is up to the Senate.

Minister Fábio Faria thanked Anatel’s board members. Carlos Baigorri, who reported the 5G at the agency, was appointed president of the agency.