Bottleneck of the Internet in Latin America requires regulatory intervention

A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers in Brazil, released on Wednesday, 16/11, shows that the expansion of the Internet data traffic will be higher in Latin America than the world as a whole: from 2010 to 2015, the estimate overall average annual growth of data traffic is 32% per year, but the region it can reach 48%.Naturally, this growth will be driven by the use of applications with video - the expected increase is 65% over the same period in Latin American countries. "Skype, for example, writes that video calls represent over 40% of all calls between application users."Another survey from IDC indicates that the volume of digital information created and replicated worldwide will reach 1.8 zettabytes (or 1.8 trillion gigabytes) in 2011, representing an increase of nine times in just five years . In 2015, the forecast is that this massive collection of data reaches 7.9 zettabytes and that a fifth of it is stored or processed in the cloud.At the same time, PwC believes that the existing broadband infrastructure is inadequate to meet the explosive growth in demand, which has order of magnitude higher than the expansion of networks. In this sense, advocates of regulatory changes that encourage the expansion of infrastructure."The current regulations are based on market realities and technology of 90 years, when there was the goal of fostering innovation, but to fill the gap of unmet demand," argues the consultancy. And though it was produced by the Brazilian office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is the primary defense of the policies adopted in Europe.This means the promotion of state participation in those places where private companies have no interest - those "ill-served by broadband networks." Even where there is a single operator acting on the advice suggests "further analysis" before some kind of state intervention.In this line, also resists the use of instruments such as the unbundling of networks, or unbundling, citing that such a policy, when adopted in the United States did not succeed. "The local operators felt discouraged to invest in upgrading their own networks and the development of new technologies."On the other hand, PwC argues that regulatory measures should be adopted to promote efficient spectrum management and technological neutrality, ie, different broadband technologies can play in providing voice, video and data. In Brazil, Anatel resists, for example, to allow ISPs to make telecoms competition in the voice market.In addition, some policies also defended by consulting even been sketched in Brazil, but have yet to materialize. This is the case of pegging the construction of pipelines in general engineering works, or even the use of existing infrastructures, such as gas networks for broadband expansion.