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Rural connectivity in Brazil
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In 2023, Brazil achieved 92.5% of connectivity between households, as reported by the IBGE, an improvement from 91.5% in 2022. In urban areas, connectivity reached 94.1% from 93.5% in 2022, and rural connectivity advanced from 78.1% to 81%. Rural connectivity internet usage escalated from 35% to 81% in the period from 2016 to 2023. Despite these positive trends, 5.9 million households remained unconnected in 2023, with lack of internet skills being the main barrier affecting 33.2% of these homes. Other issues include high service costs (30%), unavailability of services (4.7%). Brazil is host to 60% of the biggest rainforest on the planet, and bringing information and education to remote areas is a large-scale challenge.
Brazil’s government has spent limited resources on rural connectivity, farmers have been compelled to rely on different strategies, such as industry trade group support like ConectarAGRO, an association of companies that team up to bring connectivity to remote areas of the country. Companies involved in ConectarAGRO include Amazon Web Services, CNH Industrial, Jacto, Solinftec, Nokia, TIM, Trimble and more. Another tactic is getting rural farmers comfortable with learning how to use technology. Only 46% of farmers use their cell phones to access the internet, so providing farmers with affordable digital devices and training on how to use the tools. Despite Brazil’s growing agricultural dominance, no more than one-third of Brazil’s territory is connected to land-based WiFi.
IoT is being employed to increase productivity and sustainability in Brazil’s agricultural sector, solutions include: precision farming, crop monitoring, grain silo monitoring, soil analysis, livestock management and irrigation control, as well as playing a crucial role for Brazilian smart grids to monitor and control electricity distribution, consumption and ensuring efficiency. There are also Government-supported incubators and accelerators fostering IoT start-ups, however a big challenge here is the lack of rural telecom coverage, particularly in areas where mobile connectivity is unavailable or very poorly served. These issues happen in vast areas of the country, but an increasingly popular solution is satellite IoT.
According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (‘IBGE’), nearly 32.4 million Brazilians live outside urban areas, and fibre-optic cables have a high cost and need to face physical obstacles to provide services to some locations. Thus, larger satellite coverage could help solve the problem at a more sustainable cost. Satellites pay a crucial role in Brazil's telecoms and data infrastructure, specifically providing connectivity to remote and hard to reach areas of the country. The Basil owned government company – Visiona Tecnologia Espacial, oversees the country's satellite program. Starlink has also gained popularity amongst the agricultural rural community in recent years .BR has participated in international satellite initiatives such as Iridium NEXT and OneWeb local communication satellite systems, to provide access in the most remote areas. Companies like Orange. Telesat and Blue Wireless are also partnering with agricultural companies in Brazil, and there are multiple projects launching, a notable mention to CNH Industrial and Intelsat’s collaboration, set to roll out satellite terminals at remote farms by the end of the year.