Specific 5G Offers For Agriculture And Industry Do Not Clash With Network Neutrality, Says Anatel President

The president of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), Carlos Baigorri, said during the opening of the Panel Telebrasil Talks – Industry and Agribusiness that, in his understanding, the provision of telecommunications networks with specific requirements to enable an agro or industry 4.0 connectivity application does not harm net neutrality.

“Net neutrality has a specific objective of not allowing telecom operators to decide what the user will access in terms of content. You offering speed and latency characteristics to a specialized service for industry, for agriculture or any telemedicine application, for example, does not seem to me to be necessarily an offense, a conflict, with the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet and net neutrality”, said.

According to Baigorri, any conflict of interest must be seen on a case-by-case basis and if any type of regulation is necessary, it must be done in the appropriate forums.

Baigorri also stated that Anatel wants to open the debate on the State’s role in the digital world, with the expansion of applications and social networks. According to Baigorri, on November 4, the agency will present how it imagines the debate on the regulation of internet applications should be held. “You realize that society expects from Anatel, which the law does not give powers to do”, said Baigorri about the regulation, for example, of chat apps.

The importance of advancing connectivity for the economy and its direct impact on the advancement of industry and agribusiness were the topics discussed during the second edition of the Telebrasil Talks Panel.

At the opening of the meeting, the Telecommunications secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Nathália Lobo, stressed that the use of resources from the Fund for Universalization of Telecommunications Services (FUST) facilitates the expansion of connectivity in the field. “27 per cent of Brazilian GDP comes from agribusiness. The perspective is to have the initial application of FUST in schools and rural areas, exactly fulfilling the strategic objectives of the fund”, he said.

The Telecommunications Secretary also commented on how the exemption of devices for internet of things (IoT) applications in 2020 was essential for the entire internet of things ecosystem to flourish. IOT applications have great potential impact to increase the productivity of the economy.

Nathália Lobo reinforced that 5G should expand this market. “A bigger explosion is expected when there are 5G applications, solutions for agribusiness, for industry. Applications need to emerge so that there is greater diffusion of these elements in the economy”, he said.

The executive president of Telebrasil and Conexis Brasil Digital, Marcos Ferrari, recalled that taxation hindered the growth of this market. “For us [the exemption] was a super important measure to make 5G viable in the internet of things. Taxation was an impediment to progress and the assessment of the sector was super positive”, he said.

Labor

During his participation in the opening of the meeting, the Special Secretary for Competitiveness and Productivity of the Ministry of Economy, Alexandre Ywata, reinforces that the training of qualified labor is one of the biggest challenges to accelerate the country’s innovation process.

“If I were to list what we have advanced, but which still need to accelerate, it is precisely the workforce. The whole world is going through a process of shortage of skilled labor. Technology advances so quickly that it is difficult for you to advance in training at the same speed,” he said. “I think that’s our big challenge. If I had only one form, I would put it now on the issue of training the workforce”.

Ywata also advocated the creation of a Telecommunications Market Initiative to open up thematic discussions between the government and companies to reduce bureaucracy and inefficiency and stimulate and improve regulation of the telecom sector.

“It would be a specific initiative to receive possible proposals from sectors and companies to further improve the business environment for the area of telecommunications and digitalization”, said the special secretary.

Ferrari reinforced that the discussion will be very important to think about the future of the sector. “It is a very important topic to discuss the future. In recent years we have managed to reduce the stock of liabilities that existed in the sector and now it is time to discuss flow, discuss the future, and this initiative is super important”.

After the opening, Talk 1 discussed how 5G impacts Industry 4.0. The table was attended by Embratel’s product manager, Cristiano Lopes Moreira, by the manager of the Nestlé Digital Transformation Program, Gustavo Moura, by the special advisor to the presidency of the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI), Marcela Carvalho, and by the Ericsson’s VP of Business, Murilo Barbosa.

Then Talks 2 discussed connectivity and 5G in Brazilian agribusiness and how innovation helps to increase the sector’s productivity. The panel was attended by the director of Innovation for Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Sibelle Silva, the director of Digital Transformation at Agrogalaxy, Maria Pilar Varela, the researcher at Embrapa Digital Agriculture Silvia Massruhá, and the director of public and government relations. from Huawei, Bruno Zitnick.