LIVE FROM ERICSSON BUSINESS INNOVATION FORUM 2012, BRAZIL: Brazil’s Minister of Communications has slammed the country’s regulations around the construction of mobile networks, claiming that stringent laws are holding back mobile growth.

“We have to make it easier to implement infrastructure… We need smaller antennas hidden in the environment but we also need to change the laws to encourage the construction of antennas,” said Paulo Bernardo, expressing frustration at the country’s bureaucratic processes in this area.

“I was asked the other day when LTE will become a reality in Brazil. My answer was 2050 because the laws you have mean the antennas have to be in neighbouring cities,” he quipped. “How can I connect a school if I can’t erect an antenna near the school? We have to change this. The law needs to change.”

Bernardo noted that some progress is being made, stating that the country’s treasury is removing taxes from network equipment and civil construction works. He said these steps were an important element of the country’s efforts to implement its National Broadband Plan, an initiative that aims to bring Internet connectivity beyond the existing 38 percent of Brazilian homes so far connected.

“We need to take this to everyone,” he urged. “We need a plan to make access universal. We need to use all technologies available, for example in the Amazon we will need satellites for broadband. In the interior we will use LTE… We need LTE, we need to innovate. The development of LTE is very important. We’re betting that in a year we will have technology covered by LTE.”