Telefonica to offer Viasat satellite internet to business customers in Brazil
Viasat and Telefonica Global Solutions (TGS) have partnered to provide a satellite internet service aimed at business customers across Brazil. TGS will be a wholesale distributor of Viasat’s high-speed satellite internet services in Brazil, serving businesses across the entire country.
“Our goal is to empower our customers’ businesses by connecting them to the world through innovative broadband solutions. By partnering with Viasat, we can augment our current footprint offering with Viasat’s internet service,” Gustavo Arditti, satellite business unit director at Telefónica Global Solutions commented said.
“Our experience will be essential when adapting the Viasat solution to provide corporate, B2B and cellular backhaul services and help fuel adoption of critical business applications in Brazil’s hardest-to-connect areas. We are focused on helping Brazilian B2B/wholesale drive transformational change in their business—and we believe our partnership with Viasat will help us do that,” he noted.
According to a study by Cetic.br, the research arm of the Brazilian Network Information Center, the percentage of businesses in Brazil that use digital tools like instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp increased from 26 percent to 46 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study adds that businesses located in hard-to-reach regions of the country, where terrestrial internet service is unavailable are often left behind—unable to capitalize on advanced digital services, programs and tools.
The Viasat/TGS collaboration aims to provide businesses—anywhere in the country—an opportunity to join the digital community and enhance business operations and customer engagements.
Viasat’s current satellite internet service uses bandwidth from the Telebras SGDC-1 satellite, while it plans to augment the SDGC-1 network with a next-generation satellite constellation: ViaSat-3.
The first-of-three satellites (for the Americas) is scheduled to launch in 2022 and will deliver even more data and higher speeds across Brazil.