Brazil's Telebras to name contractors for national broadband plan

Brazil continues to make progress with its national broadband plan, otherwise known as (Plano Nacional de Banda Larga, PNBL), as its state-owned service provider Telebras is close to naming vendor contracts for the project.

Although a TeleGeography report revealed that four companies have been shortlisted as possible winners of supply contracts totaling about $426 million, the service provider won't reveal what bidders won a contract.

Under the plan that was revealed last May, Brazil would effectively revive former state-run service provider monopoly Telebras to run a 23,000 km fiber network and bring broadband services 40 million households by 2014.

The vendors that have made it to the final four are broken up into two parts. First are Everest and Bimetal, which would provide necessary tower and antenna infrastructure, while Networker and Digitel would handle PNBL-related radio frequency equipment.

For more:
- TeleGeography has this article

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