Internet for All is already underway.

By Clemilton Saraiva

At the end of Lula's second term, one of his last government actions was to reactivate the former Telebras, which then had the following new functions: to be an economic regulator of broadband prices in Brazil, which were exorbitant at the time; to be a company managing a public policy that would bring internet access to the areas of education, health, and security; and finally, to become a state-owned company to implement a national cybersecurity project, assisting the national security forces through the Ministry of Defense in having a communication system that would allow the country to maintain national sovereignty in the face of the challenges of the new times.

This project consisted of launching a nationwide satellite that would make the Internet accessible to all Brazilians, wherever they may be. Another challenge was the implementation of a national broadband plan that would make the Internet accessible to the most remote areas of Brazil. Finally, the project involved launching a submarine cable that would interconnect the country with Africa, the Americas, and Europe, allowing for national integration and independence, reducing dependence on private infrastructures that, in a way, compromise the intercontinental economy that depends on these new resources in world trade between various peoples.

We are now faced with a report from the government transition task force proposing to President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) the creation of an 'internet allowance,' which, according to the understanding of the heralds of cyberspace knowledge, will reduce the price of broadband internet access for low-income Brazilians registered in the CadÚnico (Single Registry of the federal government).  

According to these experts, the proposal stemmed from a request by Lula, who reportedly asked the Communications working group for a program similar to "Light for All" to universalize internet access. It's important to highlight that "Light for All" not only lowered the price of energy but also allowed people to access electricity in various rural areas of the country. However, the program was only possible thanks to investments in expanding the electrical grids of state-owned companies in the sector, ensuring access to even the most remote locations without distinction of income or territorial difficulties.

Faced with this challenge posed by the new leader, believe it or not! These experts have arrived at a brilliant proposal, the result of a diagnosis that internet access for all will be achieved by purchasing capacity from private telecom companies and consequently distributing it to the poorest people. These self-proclaimed experts forget that the bottleneck isn't just there, but also in access to the means that provide coverage in regions that private telecom companies have no interest in reaching for a number of reasons, including immediate economic returns and profits. Furthermore, for example, the infrastructure for providing internet access for all, especially in public schools in villages or remote locations, will only be possible with the use of telecommunications resources that the state will be responsible for providing and making available in a variety of means and technologies, such as a national coverage satellite, which we already have fully operational.

As can be seen, the bottlenecks in internet access for the most needy are not solely due to the price offered by these companies, as Paulo Bernardo, coordinator of the Communication working group and former Minister of Communications and Planning in the Dilma governments, states, but rather to the articulation of various means that effectively allow internet access for all, and not a simplistic measure of a grant to expand access capacity for a few. It is worth asking this coordinator what he did to prevent the National Broadband Plan (PNBL), the "internet for all" program of the Dilma government, from taking off and fulfilling its role of bringing internet access points to schools, health centers, hospitals, fire departments, police, and civil defense, thus preventing Brazilian states and municipalities from already being under the umbrella of e-government and the population from having access to large-scale public services such as appointment scheduling and telemedicine, at a time when the SUS (Brazilian public health system) is so challenged by the need for agility in providing even basic care to the poorest populations.

Finally, credit must be given to the effectiveness and efficiency of the "Light for All" program, implemented in 2004 during Lula's government, as its bravery managed to bring infrastructure to connect millions of families who still lacked access to electricity in the most remote and precarious locations in the country. Simplifying an internet-for-all project by only acquiring access capacity from private telecommunications companies for a small portion of the population is to diminish the challenge faced by a government born with the task of reducing digital inequalities, which only widen where the majority of the population depends on limited plans subject to blocking, low speeds, unstable services, and poor signal quality. When we observe the poorest communities in this country, we see people connecting to the internet often depending on the goodwill of neighbors' Wi-Fi, in the streets, in businesses, or in the homes of friends who have good internet access. The truth is that, regardless of financial support, our population needs universal internet access so that they can access education, health, security, and quality of life through it. The challenge of our times is strengthening the digital economy, which generates jobs and income through the development of all kinds of applications. Brazil doesn't need a social tariff; what Brazil needs is public policies that expand internet access to the interior, so that investments in multi-platform infrastructure can bring social and digital justice to the most remote inland areas and riverside communities of the greater Amazon.

That being said, internet for all is already underway; what is required is the coordination of the entities already in operation and providing them with resources so that their mega-infrastructures can be made available on a large scale in the most diverse regions of this country, whether they are poor communities in large centers or in hard-to-reach locations. There is no room for reinventing the wheel; Lula has a four-year mandate, and the answers require actions that were already planned in his second term, and the inherent obstacles of politics were not put into action with the speed that the demands of the most needy populations expect and believe in during the new mandate.