The President of the Brazilian Association of Digital Inclusion Center (ABCID), Mario Brandão, said this friday during fisl13 that "Brazil has advanced very little to bridge the current digital divide". According to him, what happened in these last few years was a modification in the forms of access. for example, many people that connected using lan houses now own a smartphone.

Accordingly, he said that "it doesn't mean that more people have access to the Internet". According to CGI.br (Brazilian Internet Committee) data presented by him, 98% of class A have home connection. In classes D and E this percent drops to 21%. "Interent can't be treated as a luxury, something we can marketize". Mario said that "everyone shall be able to use and benefit from the Internet".

In rio de Janeiro, his home town, Mario said that people use the Internet in lan houses to proceed the registration of their children in public schools. Advertiser João Carlos Caribé pointed out that "there are studies showing that the digital native people have different brain structures when compared to the non-native". As an example, he quoted his own story: "I'm in the Internet for 18 years now. I have an 18 years old son. The way he uses the Internet, his cognitive construction is much superior to mine. Because I am 48 years old and I joined the Internet when I was 30."

According to Caribé, data from the Centro de Estudos sobre as Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (Cetic) point that in general Internet reaches 53% of the population. However, in rural areas, this numbers drops to 25%. He also blamed the price of the service as the culprit. "In the north region Internet access is a luxury item".

Both criticized the fact that the Nationl Broadband Plan (government initiative to provide free broadband access) have been transferred to big companies. "Somehow the government was convinced that universalization of the Internet access can be lead by the big companies", said Brandão. Caribé, in the other hand, argued that instead of big companies, schools and access centers should be responsible for the so called last mile of connection.

Written by: Pedro Faustini

E-mail: faustiniph@gmail.com