|
Brazil Telecommunications
Telecommunications
Brazil has a good system of telecommunications, including extensive
microwave radio-relay facilities. In 1995 the country had 13,237,852
telephones. It has as many as 3,171 broadcast stations. These include
1,265 FM, 1,572 medium-wave, and eighty-two tropical-wave radio
stations and 257 television stations.
In 1995 the Roman Catholic
Church organized a UHF satellite
television channel broadcasting to eight states under the aegis
of the Brazilian Institute of Christian Communication. The Brazilian
government founded the Brazilian Radio Broadcasting Company (Empresa
Brasileira de Radiodifusão--Radiobrás) in 1975 to
unite all existing state-owned broadcasting stations and to create
new radio and television services capable of reaching the Amazon
region.
Until the 1988 constitution, the president had the exclusive prerogative
to allocate radio and television concessions. In 1981, after canceling
the Tupi Network concessions, the military government very capriciously
selected political allies to set up new networks--Manchete, Bandeirantes,
and the Brazilian Television System (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão--SBT)--and
passed over other communications enterprises (the newspaper Jornal
do Brasil and the publisher Editora Abril, for example). From 1985
through 1988, television and radio con-cessions became the "currency
of political negotiation" as President Sarney tried to maintain
majorities in Congress. As a result, many evangelical (born-again
Christian) organizations acquired radio and television concessions,
much to the dissatisfaction of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1988 Radiobrás and the official Brazilian News Agency
became a single organization under the name Brazilian Communications
Company (Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação), which
retained the Radiobrás acronym. Today, Radiobrás stations
can be heard all over the country and abroad. Its television programs
also are transmitted throughout the country by Brazil Network (Rêde
Brasil). Brazil has six principal
television networks: Globo (owned by Roberto Marinho), Manchete
(Adolfo Bloch), Bandeirantes (João Jorge Saad), the SBT (Sílvio
Santos), Record (pentecostal Bishop Edir Macedo), and TV-Gaúcha
S.A. There is also an embryonic system of pay television (cable,
microwave, and satellite). Brazil is connected internationally by
three coaxial submarine cables, three Atlantic Ocean International
Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat) earth stations,
and sixty-four domestic satellite earth stations.
Brazilian Telecommunications, Inc. (Telecomunicações
Brasileiras S.A.--Telebrás), a state-owned company with monopoly
control over Brazilian telecommunications, oversees Brazil's telecommunications.
According to Telebrás, the Brazilian government is developing
an indigenous cellular telephone project, called Eco-8, which by
1998 is supposed to enable telephone contact between anywhere in
Brazil and some Central American countries. A 1995 constitutional
reform proposal allowed for the privatization of Telebrás.
Brazil leads Latin America with at least 161 Internet networks;
second-place Mexico has 105 networks. Almost 80 percent of Brazil's
largest nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are connected with
each other and with the Internet. According to the Brazilian Telecommunications
Company (Empresa Brasileira de Telecomunicações--Embratel),
in early 1995 the Internet became available to any Brazilian with
access to a telephone and a modem. Until then, the Internet had
been available only to researchers linked to educational institutions
or NGOs.
Data as of April 1997
|
|
