Theme 32 of 43

Connectivity, Digital Education & Telecom Infrastructure

Schools receive, in practice, only 30 to 40% of the internet speed they contracted for — and Brazilians pay 3.5% of the minimum wage for 1 GB, more than Mexico and Chile.

SIMET directly measures, inside Brazilian schools, the actual download speed, upload speed, and latency of the contracted connection, while Anatel tracks fixed-broadband access density and the Brazilian Connectivity Index — which combines 4G and 5G coverage, fiber-optic presence, and market concentration by municipality. Cross-referencing these measurements with Enem's socioeconomic questionnaire makes it possible to link the quality of available internet directly to student academic performance. The picture that emerges is of a country with two-speed connectivity: one for capital cities and private schools, another — far slower and more expensive — for the interior and the public network.

Digital deserts coincide with infrastructure deserts

The territorial distribution of basic infrastructure in Brazil follows a pattern that repeats across virtually every infrastructure indicator: the Southeast concentrates the highest density of equipment and services, while the North and Center-West have far scarcer infrastructure per capita. It's the same geographic layout that, further on, repeats in internet coverage — basic infrastructure and connectivity move together, and both are scarce in the same regions.

The North has less basic infrastructure per capita than any other region — the same territorial pattern that, further along, also shows up in connectivity.

The telecom oligopoly is also a regional desert

The Brazilian Connectivity Index confirms what the telecommunications market already showed in other indicators: a concentration index above 2,500 points, with just three companies accounting for 80% of the national market. This oligopoly isn't spread evenly across the territory — it overlaps exactly with the regions already identified as digital deserts, the North and Center-West, worsening the scarcity of infrastructure investment there.

The telecom sector is oligopolized — and that oligopoly overlaps exactly with the regions that are already digital deserts.

Rural and public: the worst internet in schools

Connection speed measured in schools varies drastically by location and school network: urban schools have speeds ten times higher than rural ones, and private schools, five times higher than public ones. Only 40% of schools reach the 100 Mbps target considered adequate for intensive pedagogical use of the internet — leaving most of Brazil's public network, especially in the interior, well short of the minimum needed for classes and assessments that depend on a stable connection.

Rural and public schools have the worst connectivity in the country — and only four in ten schools reach the minimum speed considered adequate.

The poorer you are, the worse your internet

The municipal Brazilian Connectivity Index correlates inversely with the Social Vulnerability Index: more vulnerable municipalities consistently register worse internet quality. It isn't a coincidence — it's a self-feeding cycle, in which lack of connectivity limits access to education, remote work, and digital services, which in turn deepens the very vulnerability that caused the digital exclusion.

Digital exclusion isn't a side effect of poverty — it's part of the mechanism that perpetuates territorial inequality in Brazil.

Promised speed isn't delivered speed

Direct measurements taken by SIMET inside schools show a serious gap between what's contracted and what's actually delivered: across every contract tier tested, schools receive between 30% and 40% of the promised speed. This isn't an isolated failure — it's a systematic pattern that suggests insufficient oversight of compliance with the connectivity contracts signed with public authorities for education.

Brazilian schools receive, in practice, between 30% and 40% of the internet speed that was contracted — actual quality is even worse than coverage numbers suggest.

5G in the interior is practically nonexistent

4G coverage reaches 95% of capital cities but drops to 15% in rural areas — a gap of more than six times. With 5G, the distance is even greater: 40% coverage in capitals versus less than 5% in the country's interior. The most advanced mobile-connectivity technology available today simply hasn't reached, in practice, most of Brazilian territory outside the major urban centers.

Rural Brazil has 15% 4G coverage, and 5G in the interior is practically nonexistent — advanced mobile networks stopped at the capitals.

The North and Northeast suffer double penalization

As if having less infrastructure and worse coverage weren't enough, the North and Northeast also face more concentrated telecommunications markets than the Southeast, as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman index for both personal mobile service and multimedia communication service. It's a double penalization: less investment in infrastructure combined with less competition among carriers, which further reduces the incentive to improve service quality in those regions.

The North and Northeast have more concentrated telecom markets than São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro — a double penalization of less infrastructure and less competition.

The pandemic accelerated connectivity — but not enough

The pandemic forced a real expansion of school connectivity: the share of schools with internet rose from 40% to 60%, and online classes went from a marginal fraction to 70% of instructional activities at the peak of the crisis. But that acceleration didn't close the gap — more than half of Brazilian students still lacked real, stable internet access, and dropout associated with the pandemic is estimated at two million students.

The pandemic accelerated school connectivity, but 55% of Brazilian students remained without real internet access — and two million dropped out in the process.

Brazilians pay more for less internet

Compared to neighboring countries with similar development levels, the cost of 1 GB of mobile internet in Brazil eats up a much larger share of the minimum wage: more than double Mexico's and more than double Chile's. Only South Africa, among the countries compared, pays proportionally more than Brazil — which sits poorly alongside the already-identified low 4G and 5G coverage outside the capitals.

Brazilians spend 3.5% of the minimum wage on 1 GB of internet — more than double Mexico or Chile, for lower-quality coverage.

Explanatory hypotheses

Telecom carriers don't invest in areas with low projected profitability, leaving regions with lower population density and lower average income systematically short of needed investment. Mobile telephony, even with 4G or 5G, doesn't adequately replace fiber optics for intensive educational use, which requires the stability and upload speed mobile networks don't deliver. And the even greater market concentration in the North and Northeast shows that the telecom oligopoly is most severe precisely in the peripheral regions — an even more captured market where competition should be most needed.

Policy implications

Direct public investment in fiber-optic infrastructure could correct the disparity that the market, on its own, has no incentive to fix. Requiring coverage expansion as a condition for spectrum licenses could force investment in currently neglected areas. Subsidies for low-income internet access could democratize access where the cost per GB still eats up a significant share of the minimum wage. Turning the school into a connectivity hub, sharing school internet with the surrounding community, could amplify the impact of each infrastructure investment. And price regulation could bring the cost of a gigabyte down from 3.5% toward levels closer to 1% of the minimum wage, already practiced by neighbors like Mexico.