Project to connect the Amazon rainforest goes ahead
A project to connect 52 municipalities in the heart of the Amazon rainforest will be resuming by the end of April.
Led by the Brazilian Army, the Amazônia Conectada (Connected Amazon) project had been under threat a few months ago due to lack of funding, however the initiative is going ahead even with limited resources.
As well as serving the population based in the rainforest, the subfluvial Internet fiber link network launched in 2014 has been key to improvements in areas such as public security, education and telemedicine.
By the end of April, some 8,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables will be laid out deep into the rivers of the Amazon rainforest region, to establish links between Amazonas state capital Manaus and the towns of Coari and Novo Airão, distant 363km and 193km from Manaus, respectively.
By the time the Coari and Novo Airão networks are laid out, there will be approximately 600km of cables installed in the Amazon region.
There are still plans to roll out additional cabling infrastructure in even more remote areas, with approximately 1000km of fiber optic cabling infrastructure.
Major Luciano Sales, coordinator at the Amazônia Conectada project, has been quoted as saying that the Army is working with an average budget of R$30-R$40m ($9,5m-$12m) out of the R$70m ($22m) that are required to build the fourth leg of the project, which will go as far as Barcelos, located 400km away from Manaus.