Americanet seeks investors for US$200mn neutral fiber network

Brazilian telecoms operator Americanet is seeking investors to help it advance plans to allocate 1bn reais (US$200mn) through 2028 to build an underground neutral fiber network in São Paulo.

Through newly created subsidiary Siena Brasil, the company aims to deploy and bury some 1,000km of fiber per year in São Paulo city and other parts of the state, totaling some 6,000km of underground cabling.

Besides making use of the network, Americanet's goal is to lease Siena's infrastructure to other internet service providers and carriers.

The company enters a highly competitive market, dominated by neutral networks V.tal (with Oi as partner and anchor-tenant), FiBrasil (co-owned by Telefônica) and I-Systems (co-owned by TIM), in addition to the neutral fiber network by wireless tower group American Tower.

Siena's network will have four ducts, one of which will be used by Americanet and the others be made available to third-parties. Americanet also said that Siena would sell dark fiber (inactive fiber network) or capacity.

“Siena Brasil was born with the objective of delivering an optical fiber internet with excellent quality and high performance, above the existing standards in the market,” Americanet said in a statement.

Still, according to the company, there is large market potential with the evolution of 5G networks and the underground cabling is an alternative for the telecom industry, which has struggled with negotiations to pass aerial cabling on poles.

Americanet's president Lincoln Oliveira said the buried neutral network, despite not being the cheapest economic alternative, is the "best way out" to solve the problems related to lack of space on poles and maintenance of these aerial networks.

The rules for the joint use of poles are still being discussed by regulators Anatel (telecom) and Aneel (power). 

Last year, fiber firm Ufinet abandoned a São Paulo pole-sharing fiber project in partnership with power distributor Enel Brasil. 

INVESTORS

Despite committing 1bn reais to the project, Americanet seeks investors to help with the 6,000km network.

Part of this neutral network started to be built and deployed in the second half of 2022, and it is currently available in five districts of São Paulo, the company said.

Americanet's existing fiber network spans more than 50,000km, passing over 250 localities in 10 Brazilian states.

At the end of December, the company registered 604,000 fixed broadband clients, 153,000 mobile telephony accesses and 310,600 landlines, according to data from Anatel.

The company has 1.4% market share in the overall fixed broadband market and 1.9% in the fiber broadband one.