Viasat Inc., a global communications company, and Telefónica Global Solutions, the subsidiary of Telefónica that manages the international Wholesale, Global Roaming, Multinationals and USA businesses, announced a partnership to increase the availability of fast, reliable satellite internet service aimed at businesses across Brazil. Per the agreement, Telefónica Global Solutions will be a wholesale distributor of Viasat’s high-speed satellite internet services in Brazil, serving businesses across the entire country.
According to a study by Cetic.br, the research arm of the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br), the percentage of businesses in Brazil that use digital tools like instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp increased from 26% to 46% during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, 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.
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Gustavo Arditti, satellite business unit director at Telefónica Global Solutions commented, “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. 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.”
Leandro Gaunszer, managing director of Viasat Brazil added, “As part of our commitment to Brazil, we continue to expand our service offerings and sign new distribution agreements to better serve and reach more people across the country. We have seen tremendous adoption of our service, where many of our customers are connecting to the internet for the first time. We want to expand that opportunity to serve businesses nationwide. By working with TGS, we can reach more locations, target a more diverse customer base and provide a way to bring digital inclusion to more businesses nationwide.”
Viasat’s current satellite internet service uses bandwidth from the Telebras SGDC-1 satellite. Viasat 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.
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