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Brazilian bank offers free Wi-Fi access in São Paulo

Banco do Brasil enables Internet access at one of the city's postcard locations in the largest private sector service provision initiative in the country.
Written by Angelica Mari, Contributing Writer

A Brazilian bank is offering free Wi-Fi access to passers-by in one of São Paulo's postcard locations in the largest service provision initiative carried out by the private sector in the country so far.

Launched yesterday (6), the service will be provided by Banco do Brasil (BB) for a year to users via a 2.7 kilometer fiber optic network rolled out in Avenida Paulista.

Users will be required to log on via their social network credentials to use the service, which is part of a marketing campaign geared at increasing the number of BB's mobile banking users.

Currently, BB has 12,5 million m-banking users and the goal is to increase that number to 15 million within the coming months.

The minimum connection speed provided by BB will be 1 Mbps, regardless of the number of connected users. Avenida Paulista has an approximate footfall of 1,5 million people daily.

The project is a partnership with advertising firm JCDecaux.

Free Wi-Fi service provision by the São Paulo government started to take shape in 2013 and took off in 2015 with a number of locations across the city enabling Internet access at no cost to citizens.

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