For the Minister of Communications, Fabio Faria, the result of these two-day river auctions "exceeded all expectations".

This tender was the largest in the history of Brazilian telecommunications.

Experts initially expected R $ 50 billion, between operating licenses paid directly to the government and planned investments.

But the amount paid by companies for spectrum operating licenses is "5 billion reais higher" than the floor set for auctions, according to the minister, several lots having been the subject of significant competition.

This makes this tender the second most lucrative in Brazil, after the record oil auction in October 2019.

The main telephone operators in Brazil, TIM, the Brazilian subsidiary of Telecom Italia, Telefonica Brasil, a subsidiary of the Spanish group Telefonica, with the Vivo brand, and Claro, of the Mexican group America Movil, have distributed the most coveted prizes, for the frequency 3.5 GHz.

The operating licenses have a term of twenty years and the companies will have to provide the service in the Federal District of Brasilia and the capitals of the 26 Brazilian states before July 31, 2022.

The Brazilian Minister of Communications, Fabio Faria, addresses the press during the auction for the deployment of 5G, November 4, 2021 in Brasilia EVARISTO SA AFP

For other cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants, the service must be available between 2025 and 2028.

New Horizons

The challenge is significant, in a country where 40 million people do not yet have access to the internet, according to the latest official data from 2019.

"The whole of Brazil will be connected, no Brazilian will be deprived of the Internet," Minister Fabio Faria commented on Twitter.

"I have visited indigenous communities, what have I been asked? Internet!", Said President Bolsonaro Thursday, during the opening ceremony.

Beyond allowing better internet coverage in this country with continental dimensions, 5G should stimulate many economic sectors, in particular agro-trading, one of the main engines of Brazilian growth.

5G will open up new fields of internet use, with connected tractors and drones to monitor crops.

In other areas, it will allow the development of self-driving cars or telemedicine instruments, according to experts.

The 5G operating licenses granted have a term of twenty years EVARISTO SA AFP

Two networks were concerned by this historic call for tenders: the main network and a specific network which, for security reasons, will be for the exclusive use of the State.

For the latter, the Chinese private giant Huawei, at the center of a Sino-American rivalry, had been excluded.

Initially scheduled for the first half of 2021, the call for tenders had also been delayed due to Huawei's particular situation.

Washington, which blacklisted the Chinese private company in 2019, accuses it of espionage and urges its Western allies not to use its services.

© 2021 AFP