| I'm just back from a week in Brazil preparing for our Wi-Fi World Congress Americas 2023 event coming up in March 2023 - and here's my conclusion: The Wi-Fi opportunity in Brazil is huge - for a number of reasons: First of all, Anatel (the Brazilian regulator) was wise enough to release the full 6 GHz band to Wi-Fi early - and Brazil is now even the first country in Latin America to test outdoor Wi-Fi 6E. Secondly: The Brazilian smart home industry is now starting up in earnest with a few service providers out in front - such as Oi - offering intelligent connectivity solutions for the home. But with nearly 220 million pop and 55 million households (many of them underserved) we're right at the beginning of Brazil's smart home market push. Add to this that here are hundreds of ISPs in Brazil - including many fibre-based - and they will need (eventually!) to wow their home broadband customers with great Wi-Fi. Finally: Brazil is hands down the largest enterprise Wi-Fi market in Latin America. Brazilian enterprises large and small - including heavy industry, agriculture, and loads of other verticals within this huge country - understand the value of high-performance, low-cost Internet. One thing that impressed me: Scale. Brazil is in some ways similar to the US in that 'large projects' easily means thousands or tens of thousands of access points. That said the Brazilian market is complex and multi-faceted. Yes, there are real opportunities for high-end vendors while the challenge to serve the mass of Brazilians with something both effective and cost effective remains. I believe right now is the right time for local and global Wi-Fi industry to address all of the above - and everything in between. I'm delighted that I got to meet with so many excellent Wi-Fi people on my trip over - including excellent and super knowledgable folks from Wireless Brazil, NTT, Telefonica Tech, Mobicare, Nokia, Americanet, Oi, and many more. So what's next if you're interested in Brazilian Wi-Fi? One of the most satisfying things we get to do at Wi-Fi NOW is to explore new markets and - hopefully - help local, regional, and international companies (including our many great partners) to grow through networking, information sharing, and of course by evangelising the benefits of Wi-Fi. And that is exactly what we intend to do for Brazil as well - starting now and leading up to the Wi-Fi World Congress Americas in Rio de Janeiro on March 27-29. If you like the idea of joining us in Rio then don't delay: Get in touch with us now. Write to either myself or event director Inna Tachev at inna@wifinowevents.com. We're committing our energies to helping the Brazilian Wi-Fi market to grow the only way we know how: Connecting people to each other and to the latest in cutting-edge information on Wi-Fi. /Claus.
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