The huge territory and widely dispersed populations of Brazil place many challenges on telecom deployment. In order to stimulate broadband rollout in the country, novel approaches to regulation have been tried. These include a careful definition of areas requiring direct subsidy and those that could potentially be profitably served by so called Small Providers, essentially very small service providers responsible for their own infrastructure often sited in local communities.

The results have so far been impressive with an estimated 10000 providers started in the country. The regulator ensures co operation between providers and major operators in order to secure reliable backhaul. Local communities in many cases feel they “own” their service provider.

Other regulatory innovations concern the development of a potentially symbiotic relationship between OTTs and telcos, particularly in terms of community service provision. OTTs have also begun joint ventures with service providers.