Only 1% of the country’s municipalities are ready to receive 5G

Only 1% of the 5,568 municipalities in Brazil have laws passed by their municipal councils to enable the implementation of the technology 5G. In addition, only seven of the country’s 27 capitals have their legislation up to date and, therefore, ready to receive the new mobile network technology.

The period stipulated in the auction notice for the Ministry of Communications and the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), held in November last year, is so that by July 31, all capitals will be ready to receive the technology.

So far, the capitals that could install the new technology are Brasília, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Palmas, Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. There are also situations in São Paulo and Vitória, where laws were passed, but are still awaiting sanction.

The initial schedule, established by Anatel also provides that, in addition to the capitals, cities have different schedules for adaptation.

Those with between 200 and 500 thousand inhabitants need to adapt by 2026. Those with between 100 thousand and 200 thousand, by 2026. And the smallest, with up to 100 thousand inhabitants, could make adjustments until 2027.

For the new networks to be implemented, it is necessary to modernize and update the municipal antenna laws. According to the Brazilian Association of Telecommunications Infrastructure (Abrintel), “depending on the application of 5G, the new technology may require five to ten times more transmission antennas than 4G, which needs to be made possible by updating some laws” .

For Luciano Stutz, president of Abrintel and Movimento Antene-se, the capitals that came out ahead are ready to receive all stages of technology implementation.

“The seven capitals that have already passed new laws on land use and occupation for telecommunications infrastructure have already prepared for the three phases of 5G deployment in the capitals, scheduled for 2022, 2023 and 2024, each year with more antenna density per inhabitant. “, he said.

According to Abrintel, the most worrying situations are the cities of Belo Horizonte and Goiânia, which, according to Stutz, in addition to not yet having a definition of new laws, have severe restrictions on the implementation of towers and other support structures.

The entity’s president said that, despite the low number of capitals ready to implement 5G technology, there is good expectation to ensure installation conditions in the capitals.

However, it is urgent that cities update the General Law of LGA Antennas, the federal government.

“Even understanding that the best path is to modernize the legislation, the structures currently used can enable the launch of 5G in the first phase, on July 31. But as the new technology needs five times more antennas than 4G, the existing infrastructure may not be sufficient for all future phases”, warns Stutz.

“So, even if there is a way to have 5G in these cases, only with the updating of the laws will we be able to have a number of antennas for a good connectivity service”.