Alternatives for infrastructure development and broadband access
Members of DIRSI and LIRNE.NET were among the participants at a high-level international seminar in Brasilia, Brazil organised by the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of the Presidency on 16 November, 2009.
The strategic affairs secretariat is currently in the process of developing a national policy agenda and the seminar was organised to gather international experience and discuss strategies conducive to promoting the democratization of access in Brazil with a particular focus on such things as the limits and opportunities for state intervention, innovative business models and low-cost technologies, successful experiences of universal access and cost-benefit analyses of regulatory practices.
See more photos of the seminar
The seminar was opened by a distinguished panel including Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, Minister of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil, Márcio Pochmann, President of the Institute of Applied Economic Research, Hélio Costa, Minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo, Minister of Planning, Budget, and Management, and Ronaldo Sardenberg, President of the regulatory agency, ANATEL.
Cezar Alvarez, Deputy chief of staff of the President's Agenda and coordinator of the Federal Government's programs for digital inclusion gave a detailed presentation on the objectives of the national broadband policy.
Proposals under consideration cover all aspects of broadband delivery including, for example, deploying dark fibre currently in the hands of government-owned utility companies and the semi-public company, Petrobras, to introduce competition to the Brazilian backbone market, and licensing local community-owned networks or microtelcos to provide last mile delivery of services.
Panels throughout the day covered international best (and worst) practices on social inclusion, impact, regulatory models and alternatives for infrastructure rollout. DIRSI member Bruce Girard spoke on “Community-driven networks and microtelcos: A strategy for ICT rollout & social inclusion” and Márcio Iorio Aranha's presentation was on “Convergent policy: divergent legislation” (Política pública convergente: legislação divergente). Other LIRNE.NET members included Alison Gillwald of Research ICT Africa! and Helani Galpaya of LIRNEasia.
Speakers came from Brazil, USA, Uruguay, Sri Lanka, Argentina, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, Japan, European Commission, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The day after the seminar focused meetings were organised so the international participants could provide more detailed avdvice to strategic affairs staff.
More information about the seminar, including some of the presentations, is available in Portuguese at http://www.sae.gov.br/bandalarga/ and in English at http://www.sae.gov.br/broadband/
