Brazil’s National Broadband Plan (Plano Nacional de Banda Larga, PNBL) took another step forward as four of the country's largest service providers have confirmed their involvement in the initiative.
Telemar Norte Leste (Oi), Telefonica Brazil (including Telesp), Algar Telecom (formerly CTBC) and Sercomtel revealed they will participate.
Under the new plan, these four service providers are required to begin delivering 1 Mbps minimal speeds for BRL35 (US$22) a month.
Broadband services would be delivered over a 23,000 km fiber network that will be run by former state monopoly telco Telebras to deliver broadband services 40 million households by 2014.