Vivo Expands Coverage in Brazil, Beneficial To M2M Providers and Operators

August has been one of the strongest months for the Telecommunication industry in Brazil this year, as the country ended the month with 277 million active mobile lines, a net addition of 1.26 million mobile connections in one month. According to the data collected by Anatel, the Brazilian Agency for Telecommunications, the number has increased to almost 50 percent from June to July, and the number of mobile devices in Brazil is still continuously growing. The total mobile access for the month of August reached 212 million for prepaid and 64.5 million for postpaid, with mobile penetration of 136%.

From the data collected by Anatel, Vivo still leads Brazil by the number of mobile subscribers and network coverage. Although, there was no breakdown of figures in Anatel's report, Vivo is reported to have 79.6 million subscribers with 28.8% market share. In related efforts to widen and strengthen Vivo's network and coverage in various areas in the country, Vivo recently announced that the company will start activating additional networks in 11 municipalities across Brazil. This covers four states, Santa Catarina, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo. With these, Vivo's 4G services become available in 111 cities, making them the biggest and the widest in the region, covering 18 more cities than competitor companies such as TIM, Claro and Oi. Reports also show that Vivo paid 1.9 billion reais (US$791 million) to acquire a new radio-frequency to make the initiative possible.

And although Anatel's report in August stated that there has been no change in the way M2M connection data are collected, Machine-to-machine (M2M) providers and operators in Brazil are ecstatic about these new additions. Parlacom Brasil, one of the leading M2M providers and partners of Vivo for M2M deployments in Brazil, is delighted to find out about the news. Lead by its Founder and CEO, Clovis Lacerda, Parlacom, believes that expanded, wider network coverage is extremely beneficial to Machine-to-machine projects and initiatives in the country.

"Vivo has been a very reliable partner in a number of our M2M projects all over Brazil. With this recent development and network additions from Vivo, I am more than positively assured of the success of each project that we do with them." Lacerda affirmed.

"Having wider coverage is the key in ensuring the success of M2M projects such as remote management system and utilities, smart grids and other services that depend on mobile network transmission. It is a great move for Vivo to expand their coverage in Brazil, as the M2M industry, not just in Brazil, but the rest of Latin America, is quite a promising one", the Brazilian CEO added.