Fixed broadband provision declines in Brazil
The levels of quality of service and general customer satisfaction related to fixed broadband provision in the first semester of 2015 have seen a substantial decline in Brazil, according to official numbers.
Statistics released by Brazilian telecommunications agency Anatel indicate that providers have only managed to reach 59,5 percent of their service provision goals in the first six months of the year.
This compares with the percentage of reached goals in service provision seen in previous years: 67,85 percent in 2014, 70,55 percent in 2013 and 70,94 percent in 2012.
The most problematic areas within fixed broadband services in the first six months were loss of signal and technician requests: for those two areas, the percentage of fulfilled requests against the goals established by Anatel were 29,8 percent and 12,9 percent respectively.
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In terms of customer satisfaction goals, Brazilian telcos have had the worst performance of the last four years with 54 percent for the period. This compares with 66,8 percent in 2014 and 80,1 percent in 2013.
Internet speed in Brazil lags considerably behind the rest of the world and ranks pretty much at the bottom of the list of nations analyzed yearly by Akamai.
As of this month, telecommunications companies operating in Brazil are being forced to deliver 80 percent of the average broadband speed contracted by customers, as a result of service quality rules set by Anatel to stop companies from arbitrarily reducing speeds of residential and business broadband contracts.
The Brazilian government has previously expressed that it understands that investment in the country's Internet infrastructure is crucial to overall development. This area in particular has been spared from budget cuts that have been announced since the local economy sank into recession.
Earlier this year, the government promised more investment and the creation of public-private partnerships to improve Internet provision. Then last month, it was announced that some R$15bn ($4bn) will be injected in the creation and improvement of broadband projects, of which 80 percent will go towards access networks that connect users to their service provider and the remainder mostly funding projects related to the equipment and fibers handling the physical transport of signals, known as transport networks.