The future deployment of 5G technology in Brazil could have a $1.216 trillion economic impact and an increase in productivity of $3.08 trillion, according to a recent study by Nokia and Omdia.
ICT, government, manufacturing, services, agriculture, and retail will be the industries most impacted by the future deployment of 5G in Brazil, the study concluded.
“Government (including public education and healthcare) is one of the main contributors to Brazilian GDP, and some of the main opportunities envisaged for 5G in the country are in areas where governments at all levels are the main buyers. “When it comes to improving connectivity, via both eMBB and FWA, Brazil still has a major challenge in connecting public services to the internet in a significant part of its 5,650 municipalities, especially in rural and remote areas. The country has been struggling to offer public services such as healthcare and education in such places. However, the combination of investment in broad capillarity and robust backhaul with high-capacity 5G network access can enable sophisticated services such as telemedicine, supporting remote diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients and increasing coverage of healthcare services,” Nokia’s study said.
The Finnish vendor also highlighted that 5G will enable smart city solutions in the country as almost 85% of the country’s population live in urban areas, and cities such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are among the largest in the world, with several challenges to match their size. “Nonetheless, the range of use cases that 5G can enable for smart cities in Brazil is somewhat limited by the chronically poor financial situation of the country’s municipalities. In other words, the use cases that have a guaranteed source of funding and/or business models that do not require large expenditures by city governments tend to be the ones with a higher chance of being implemented.”
The study also found that 5G technology will have a positive impact in other sectors such as manufacturing, retail and agriculture, saying, “A common goal for the Brazilian manufacturing sector as a whole is to improve productivity levels. Therefore, 5G-enabled use cases such as the implementation of AGVs, applied in smart factories and warehouses, allowing flexible path planning and replacing conveyor belts, need to be among the priorities of the sector. In addition, 5G will enable the location of parts and equipment with a high degree of precision, saving time and optimizing processes.”
Nokia and Omdia noted that there are 2,400 farms in Brazil of 10,000 hectares or more, in many cases using highly mechanized, but often offline, production techniques. “Opportunities for 5G span the whole process, and many use cases are already mapped in what the sector has called precision agriculture, that is, the use of technology in the industry’s processes.”
Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel expects to hold an auction to award 5G spectrum by the end of 2020 or in the first months of next year. Even before COVID-19, the 5G spectrum auction schedule had been postponed from its initial March 2020 date, given the need to further investigate interference with other signals.
Late in March, Anatel indefinitely halted field tests for the 3.5 GHz frequency.
Anatel had previously confirmed that it would award spectrum in the 2.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands.
Nokia and Omdia found that 5G could deliver up to $3.3 trillion of economic and social value in Latin America by 2035 and a $9 trillion improvement in productivity.
