Brazil Poised for Broadband Boom
Calling All Latin Americans Dept: Help us understand this one, because a lot was written by me and others about AMD's attempt to sell PCs to the poor, and one of the target countries was Brazil. I think we all agreed that the cost was too high especially for the lame hardware involved, and yet, here is a report today from Reuters, showing that while countries like the US with heavy broadband use are seeing great growth rates of around 40%, Brazil is seeing an incredible 50-100% growth in broadband subscribers.

Some Theories, and then we want to hear from real people living in those countries (and let us post your replies on this story if we can):

1. People are skipping dial-up and going to straight broadband. We saw this in many eastern European countries with the cell phone. Instead of waiting years on a waiting list for a landline, people said the Hell with it and went right to the cell phone.

2. This is only for the very wealthy. In the US we are used to even the very poor having access to an array of surprisingly affordable products like $39 DVD players at WalMart and inexpensive stereos, phones and so on. When I went to Santiago, Chile I was struck by how there was no visible middle class. People were either very poor or very, very wealthy. I saw this also in Bangkok, Thailand too, where my hotel had high speed wireless and people outside were eating food for under $1 served in less than ideal conditions from street vendors. Maybe, the wealthy of Brazil are simply adding in this high speed luxury as a matter of course and there is enough market there to show this kind of growth and the interest to make it worthwhile.

Now here are the numbers from the Reuters piece: "Brazil has become Latin America's No. 1 market in terms of the number of users, with over 1.5 million subscribers in June, according to a study by Point Topic, a provider of broadband market research. The three main operators expect to reach a combined total of almost 2 million broadband users by year's end, with the number close to 2.6 million in 2005.

"Telefonica, currently the largest provider with just over 700,000 high-speed clients, sees its figure growing by 50 percent to 60 percent in 2005, while Brasil Telecom and Telemar, which expect to have 280,000 and 450,000 users by year-end, respectively, see 100 percent growth next year. By comparison, Mexico has nearly 400,000 broadband users, while Argentina has a little over 350,000."

And yet....

"Despite the hefty investments expected in the sector, the government has made few strides in disseminating the Web in the country, where only 15 percent of the 180 million population has access to computers. To recover lost ground, the government plans to spend 3 billion reais ($1 billion) next year to offer computers and training in poor communities."

Our Take:
Sounds like the government should buy up those AMD boxes, insist on Ethernet ports and send them out for $20. Or am I missing something here?

Thoughts?
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