For many people, being connected to the internet is as natural as turning on the light or the kitchen tap. A simple touch on the screen allows access to the news, classes, medical care, work, and leisure. You can make life happen in real-time with your fingertips. However, for millions of Brazilians, this scenario does not correspond to reality.
According to research led by Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics], approximately 22 million people live without internet access in their homes. The higher concentration of these homes is in the North and Northeast regions. In Acre, 1 out of 4 homes does not have internet access. In Amazonas and Pará, more than 20% of residences remain without internet connection. On the other hand, Brazilian states such as São Paulo, Santa Catarina, and the Federal District exceeded 93% coverage, pointing to a digital inequality setting that reinforces other forms of exclusion.
The United Nations (UN) recognizes the access to Internet as a fundamental human right. Until recently, however, connectivity had been denied to residents of the community of Campo Verde, within the city of Concordia do Pará, in the northeastern region of the state, where the absence of internet imposed constraints on families' daily lives.
Forty kilometers away from the nearest urban center, community members used to live on the margins of the digital world. The most important sources of information were the radio and television, both with unstable broadcast signals. “The news usually arrived by word of mouth,” says José Maciel, 21, a resident of the community and currently a student of Telecommunications Engineering course at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA).
COUNTERACTING
However, this situation began to change in 2023, with the establishment of the Projeto Telefonia Celular Comunitária (Celcom) [Community Cell Phone Telephony Project]. The initiative was developed by the Núcleo de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações, Automação e Eletrônica (Lasse) [Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications, Automation, and Electronics], a laboratory at UFPA, installed at Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia (PCT) [Science and Technology Park], Guamá neighborhood in Belém. The aim is to tackle digital exclusion by bringing connectivity access for traditional and extractivist communities in the Amazon region.
"The connectivity pattern in our region is still very unequal. Cell phone companies do not go to those areas because it is not profitable for them. So, we created technology to facilitate the arrival of 4G and 5G signals in these places," explains computing engineer Cleverson Nahum, project researcher. “We develop, install, and train people in the communities to keep the system functioning in the long term,” he says.
According to Nahum, who holds a master's and doctor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UFPA, the community telephony model is a practical response to the historical neglect of these populations. “What we have done is to break a cycle of exclusion by allowing communities to have autonomy over their connectivity. This model empowers people in citizenship, education, access to health, and opportunities for income generation.
OPERATION
Celcom is currently operating in two communities: Campo Verde, where the project has benefited over 500 residents and Boa Vista do Acará, in the municipality of Acará – northeast of Pará – which serves up to 300 people. The system involves the installation of towers with antennas that are 30 to 50 meters high, local servers that process the data, as well as a network of other small antennas that amplify the signal.
The project was a personal turning point in José Maciel's life. “I chose Telecommunications Engineering because the project aroused a curiosity I didn't have before. I wanted to understand how it worked, how something that seemed so far away from our reality could really help our community” he says.
Today, the young man works as a Celcom monitor in Campo Verde. But there are still challenges to face. “Even though the cell phone signal we have helps, it's not enough. Moreover, less than 30% of the people here know how to use technology,” he says. Despite this, he recognizes the advances. “The internet has brought information, communication, education, and healthcare. It's a right!”, he argues.
Initiative connects traditional forest peoples
While some actions progress on a regional level, there are also other initiatives being carried out in more specific communities helping to connect multiple territories. This is the case of Conexão Povos da Floresta [Forest Peoples Connection], a project created in 2022 and implemented in January 2023, aiming to bring broadband internet to more than 4,500 indigenous, quilombola, riverside, and extrativist communities in the Legal Amazon region
The proposal seeks to promote digital inclusion as a tool for citizenship, education, health, and environmental conservation. “We are in the scale-up phase”, says Juliana Dib Rezende, executive secretary of the initiative. “We have already connected more than 1,700 communities, which we estimate represent around 145,000 people. Now, the goal is to reach 3,000 communities by the end of this year by prioritizing areas that face the greatest access limitations and external threats, where connectivity can promote impact on guaranteeing rights”, she says.
The project is led by the Coordenação Nacional de Articulação das Comunidades Negras e Rurais Quilombolas (CONAQ) [National Coordination for the Articulation of Black and Rural quilombola Communities], the Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (COIAB) [Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon], and the Conselho Nacional das Populações Extrativistas (CNS) [National Council of Extrativist Populations], with support from more than 30 civil society organizations, institutions, and companies.
INFRASTRUCTURE
With high-capacity routers, satellite antennas, cell phones, computers, and, in isolated regions, solar energy kits, the Conexão Povos da Floresta overcomes logistical, climatic, and geographical barriers. In the state of Pará alone, 691 communities have already benefited from the project, followed by 386 in Amazonas, 209 in Amapá, 105 in Acre, 94 in Rondônia, 64 in Mato Grosso, 63 in Maranhão, 60 in Roraima, and 50 in Tocantins.
But technology, according to Dib Rezende, only makes sense if it is collectively and consciously appropriated. “One of the foundations of the project is community control of the network. The community is responsible for choosing the facilitators who will manage the connection, define the rules of use, and participate in the governance of the system. This model strengthens local protagonism”, she summarizes.
To support this new digital reality, the initiative created five Working Groups (WGs): Education, Health, Territorial Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Culture and Ancestry. These groups offer courses such as Digital Expertise, which focus on security and responsible use of the Internet. In the healthcare area, a telehealth program has enabled more than 1,100 remote medical consultations in 100 communities.
BENEFITS
The practical impacts in different areas are crystal clear. In the Javari Valley (AM) and in Xingu River region (PA), the internet has increased the capacity for territorial surveillance against invaders or intruders. Another example comes from the Unini River Extractive Reserve in Barcelos (AM), where a resident began to promote ecological tourism services on social media after receiving training in digital entrepreneurship by means of the initiative.
There are currently simultaneous installations underway in all states of the Legal Amazon region. “Connectivity is also a tool for environmental protection. Now, local people can report invasions, follow political debates, and participate in the development of public policies without leaving their territories,” concludes the project’s executive secretary.
Access as strategy to avoid digital colonization
More than just connecting communities to the internet, digital inclusion in the Amazon is a measure of historical and strategic reparation. This is what technology and artificial intelligence specialist Igor Gammarano, a post-doctorate in administration and professor at the State University of Pará (UEPA), argues. For him, integrating communities into the digital world is an advance that also strengthens citizenship and promotes greater equity. “By accessing the internet, people are able to claim their rights, interact with other cultures, strengthen the local economy, and engage with content,” he says.
Among the main benefits, Gammarano mentions the use of the internet to fill historical structural gaps. “In education, this means breaking with the scarcity of teaching materials and allowing students and teachers to interact with the world in real-time. In the healthcare area, it's the leap to telemedicine, remote diagnostics, and preventive actions that save lives where the state can't reach,” he says. “Within economy, digital access allows small producers into market socio-biodiversity items, creating new models of sustainable entrepreneurship. Politically, it increases the capacity for social mobilization and supervision,” he lists.
CHALLENGES
On the other hand, the researcher also warns of the risks of unstructured inclusion, which can lead to new forms of exclusion. “When these communities access the digital environment, they face real risks: data manipulation, economic exploitation, and cultural erasure, for example,” he says. According to him, there is a lack of public policies that guarantee data protection, information security, and respect for local culture.
Gammarano also emphasizes connectivity cannot be imposed in a colonial way, ignoring the specificities of traditional populations. “Connecting without invading, respecting territories, cultures, and ways of life. The digital world cannot be a new form of colonization,” he warns.
If, on the one hand, the internet represents a window to the world, on the other, the paths to making this connection reach the traditional communities of the Amazon are tortuous, distant, and often unstable. “The main obstacles involve organizing this logistics and the high cost when it comes to implementing internet in remote areas,” says Juliana Dib Rezende, from Conexão Povos da Floresta.
PLANNING
This concern is shared by Cleverson Nahum, a researcher of the Celcom Project, who also emphasizes the need for sustainable planning and continuity in public policies. “Connectivity projects that start and are not sustained in the long term can lead to frustration and setbacks. We need to ensure that connectivity remains working as a useful tool for communities,” he says.
In addition to infrastructure difficulties, there is also a subtle but profound social impact: the replacement of collective spaces by virtual interactions. “In the past, we used to drop in for a chat in our yards. Now, we send messages and rarely go to our neighbors' houses, for example,” says Alice Silva, a pedagogical coordinator from the Campo Verde community in Concórdia do Pará.
For her, the future of connectivity needs to balance technological benefits with community empowerment. “If there is public internet in collective spaces, with volunteer monitors, we can strengthen citizenship, guarantee rights, and keep our ways of living together alive,” she advocates.
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIP
The production of Liberal Amazon is one of the initiatives of the Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Liberal Group and the Federal University of Pará. The articles involving research from UFPA are revised by professionals from the academy. The translation of the content is also provided by the agreement, through the research project ET-Multi: Translation Studies: multifaces and multisemiotics.
