Brazil is not mobile-ready for FIFA World Cup, says Infonetics

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released the report ‘2G, 3G, LTE Mobile Infrastructure and Subscribers in Brazil’, which tracks GSM, W-CDMA and LTE equipment and subscribers in Brazil.

According to Stéphane Téral, Infonetics’ principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, “Despite the size of the country and its economic clout, Brazil’s mobile infrastructure is modest in size, with a total installed base of just 60,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) at the beginning of last year. For comparison’s sake, AT&T alone has roughly this many BTS in the US.”

Téral believes that Brazil will not be mobile-ready for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 12 June. This adds to the list of problems surrounding the event, she said, including anti-World Cup riots and infrastructure issues.

“They’ve installed distributed antenna systems (DAS) in some stadiums, so those should be fine, but there are way too few base transceiver stations in surrounding neighbourhoods, such as those around the Maracanã stadium in Rio, to handle the mobile traffic of the impending crowds,” she said. “And currently there are only 24 base transceiver stations in Jacarepaguá, where most of the Olympics will be hosted in 2016. Brazil has some work to do.”

Mobile communications are already slow in Brazil - around 1.4 Mbps on average - due to 136% mobile penetration and not enough BTS to accommodate the load. Infonetics expects Brazil’s mobile infrastructure market to grow through 2016 and then turn bleak as major infrastructure projects are completed.

To buy the report, visit http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp.

Source