Delays in Issuing Antenna Licenses Threaten Installation of 5G in Brazil

By Arkady Petrov

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – City councils retarding the issuance of licenses to install cell phone antennas could compromise 5G offered in Brazil.

Telecommunications companies share the concern, as do the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications, and the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel).

The ministry said it is working on a decree to speed up the release of antennas and prevent delays from affecting the installation of 5G in Brazil.

The matter is urgent: Anatel expects to submit the proposal for 5G auction notice to a public consultation at the beginning of the second semester this year. The auction is scheduled for the first quarter of 2020.

Sinditelebrasil, the union bringing together telecommunication companies, states that the 2015 law establishing 60 days as the maximum deadline for issuing installation licenses has not been respected. In some cases, the delay exceeds one year, reports the organization.

São Paulo has licensed only ten antennas over the last year, an insufficient number to meet the increased demand, according to Sinditelebrasil.

5G will require five times more antennas than 4G; this is worrying telecom companies.

Sinditelebrasil also advocates a modernization of the law dealing with the installation of antennas to keep up with technological developments.

Vitor Menezes, the telecommunications secretary of the Ministry of Communications, admitted that failing to meet the deadline to release the installation of antennas is an issue, and to prevent it the government is working on a decree to regulate the General Law on Antennas.

One of the points to be considered is the so-called “deemed approved” procedure, which frees the company to install the antenna should the city fail to meet the 60-day deadline for evaluating the license application.

“Today Brazil runs a deficit of 100,000 antennas for the network in its current form. Considering that 5G demands five times more antennas, if nothing is done in the future, we may face a major implementation problem. This is a problem that concerns us,” Menezes said.

Brazil currently provides 94 thousand telephone antennas to provide service ranging from 2G to 4G.

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