Chair of Education Committee demands inclusion of public schools in 5G connectivity

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Professor Dorinha Seabra Rezende (DEM-TO), chair of the Chamber of Deputies’ Education Committee, demanded the inclusion of connectivity goals for public schools in the fifth generation (5G) mobile broadband auction.

“The 5G auction notice cannot continue in its current format, ignoring schools, ignoring education,” she said in a debate at the Chamber’s Center for Strategic Studies and Debates (CEDES) on Tuesday, June 15. CEDES is conducting a study on ongoing public policies on education technology. Professor Dorinha is the rapporteur of this study, along with deputy Angela Amin (PP-SC).

At the hearing, the director of the Department for the Improvement of Telecommunications Pedro Araújo said that the 5G public notice does not have specific commitments for schools, but added that operators’ obligations to connect municipalities will also impact schools.

The public notice, approved by the National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL) and currently under review by the Federal Audit Court (TCU), provides for 5G service in all host cities by 2029. Thus, according to Araújo, 71,000 public schools could potentially be connected.

Moreover, the document foresees the coverage of some 10,000 locations with 4G by 2028, with a potential impact on 6,000 rural schools.

He conceded that the service potential does not necessarily translate into effective school connection and that it is a “simple” calculation, which does not take into account the establishments’ geographical distribution or the signal transmission capacity of different technologies.

Professor Dorinha argued for a change in the public notice to set tangible goals, so that the TCU has instruments to monitor the fulfillment of these goals. “It is no use having intentions, good will, and thinking that schools will be served. We must have a guarantee of this service and an instrument capable of enforcing it. Only with a specific change in the 5G auction notice will we be able to have this guidance, including to enforce it,” she said.

Paulo Sisnando, the TCU’s Water, Communications and Mining Infrastructure Secretariat director, pointed out that the time is right to clarify the precise number of schools that will be served by the 5G commitments. “We are going to collect information from the Ministry and ANATEL, we will ask them to show us the number of schools that would be covered by the commitments, and then we can share it with the committee,” he said.

He said that the TCU “is waiting for ANATEL’s reaction regarding some shortcomings pointed out by the court and inquiries forwarded with doubts about the studies presented by the agency.”

He cited one of the questions raised: “The commitments set out in the bidding notice foresee only one base station (the antenna) for each small city, for every 30,000 inhabitants, or one base station for every 15,000 inhabitants in 2029 for larger cities, but the coverage of a 5G station ranges from 500m to 1 km, so it would only cover this area of the municipalities.”

Current connectivity programs

In the debate, the Ministry of Communications representative explained the current programs for connecting schools. According to Pedro Araújo, the Broadband Plan for Schools (PBLE) has been in force since 2008, and is expected to run until 2025.

According to the director, of the 84,700 existing urban public basic education schools, 69,700 are covered by the plan, and 65,200 are now connected.

Among the schools not yet connected, the principal cause is “pending issues in the schools, which are not prepared to receive the connection provided by the telecommunication operator,” he pointed out.

With respect to rural schools, mobile service operators are committed to serve at least 80% of the areas within 30 km of the seat of all Brazilian municipalities by 2027.

Of the 53,700 rural public elementary schools, 52,200 are covered by the commitment, and 30,800 are effectively connected.

Additionally, he said that the Electronic Government Program – Citizen Service (GESAC), which has been called Wi-Fi Brazil by the current government, is in force and provides free broadband via satellite in public service facilities, including schools, located in remote areas or in vulnerable situations. Currently, over 9,000 schools are connected through this program.

Low connection speed

TCU’s Paulo Sisnando pointed out that many schools currently use the internet only for administrative purposes, due to the low speed available, and educational use must be provided. “The average in urban schools is 6 Mbps (megabits per second), and the ideal, according to the FNDE [National Fund for Education Development], would be 100 Kbps per student and, as of 2022, 200 Kbps, which translates into more than 40 Mbps for a 200-student school,” he noted.

According to him, 4G connection has an average speed of around 18Mbps to 26 Mbps, so it is limited “as an instrument to meet full educational use. He said that “it is up to the Ministry of Education and ANATEL to assess whether 4G will meet the educational use, according to the rule established by FNDE, of a speed of 200 Kbs per student from 2022.

Deputy Professor Dorinha also raised concerns over the low speed. “Having a computer in a school’s administration office does not mean having availability for educational work in the school,” she said. Deputy Angela Amin emphasized the importance of preparing professionals to use technology in education.

Professor Dorinha also lamented that the government had vetoed the bill allocating R$3.5 billion (US$694 million) for internet access for students and teachers in the public school system.

However, the veto was overturned in early June, and the law was enacted by Congress. According to Law 14.172/21, the money will be transferred by the federal government to states and the Federal District, and will be used to purchase internet packages and portable devices for both students and teachers.