Panel SA: Telecoms want to exchange investment in payphones for the internet

Approaching the end of his administration, the Minister of Communications, Fábio Faria, is considering exchanging around R$ 190 million in obligations of fixed telephone operators with pay phones for investments in the optical fiber network in the municipalities.

The idea is, by means of a decree, to change the most recent PGMU (General Plan for Universalization Goals), which defines mandatory investments in the fixed network of concessionaires – pay phones are one of them.
Today, only Oi, Vivo, Sercomtel and Algar have concession contracts that are about to expire.

So far, it is not known whether these companies will migrate to the authorization model, as provided for in the new LGT (General Telecommunications Law), or whether they will return the concession – which is expensive and has fallen into disuse.

In the authorization model, the operator is completely free to allocate resources. The contracts are close to expiring.

The concessionaires’ request was recently made to the minister by Conéxis, an association that represents companies in the sector.

If authorized to carry out the exchange, Oi will be the most affected. The company tries to get out of the ditch of judicial recovery. Every year, she spends BRL 142 million on pay phones.

Next come Vivo (R$ 40 million), Algar (R$ 2 million) and Sercomtel (R$ 1 million).

Although these companies make investments to keep the pay phones in operation, these devices are practically not being used by the population.

Faced with disuse, the telecoms still tried to survive by putting an end to the scheme of magnetic cards for making calls. That’s right. The pay phones started to make calls for free to the user.

Even so, there is no demand that remunerates investments to the point of being a sustainable business, as the companies told the minister.

The proposal that is on the table at the moment is to authorize that almost all old payphones be removed from cities where cell phone signal is available.

Instead, operators could install a cell phone chip inside schools, health clinics and hospitals. This possibility has already been authorized by Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency).

In the testing phase, Oi already maintains a pilot project. Except in São Paulo, Vivo’s concession area, the operator from Rio de Janeiro operates throughout the national territory.

If the Ministry of Communications gives approval, the pay phones will be kept in the country only if there is no cell phone signal in the location. It is estimated that they would be restricted to 5% of the park currently installed in the country.

Julio Wiziack (interim) with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix