Russ Curry, Ministry of New Media
JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC) and Vivo (Telefônica Brasil SA, NYSE: VIV), number one in mobile communications in Brazil with 74 million clients, this week announced the signing of a non-exclusive 10-year framework agreement to deploy Small Cells in JCDecaux street furniture in Brazil.
In just four years, JCDecaux has established itself as the number one outdoor advertising company in Brazil, primarily in street furniture. The partnership with Vivo will provide more than 6,900 sites in the heart of the country’s biggest cities, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Salvador.
Juan Claros, Vice president of Engineering and Customer Services at Vivo, said “The quality and accessibility of the telecommunications services have become strategic for the conquest and customer loyalty, the competitiveness of cities and the development of Smart Cities. This framework agreement with an experienced partner will allow us to speed up deployment of advanced Small Cells technology by making available attractive and strategically placed sites in areas that have hitherto been hard for mobile operators to reach. JCDecaux is a major player in city economies, combining a wide footprint in the main territories of Brazil with a commitment to urban beautification, which is important to Vivo.”
JCDecaux will provide aesthetically pleasing, integrated solutions that respect its advertising concession agreements, local urban environmental policies and levels of exposure to radio waves in force. Committed to total neutrality for mobile telephone operators, and in compliance with the competition rules of ANATEL (the Brazilian national telecommunications agency), JCDecaux will provide electrical power and the final metre of fibre to the foot of each installation that is chosen by Vivo, leaving open the possibility for any other operator to easily use the same site in the future.
Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-CEO of JCDecaux, told us “We are delighted to support Vivo, number one in mobile communications in Brazil, as it seeks to develop the quality of its 3G and 4G networks in the heart of the country’s biggest urban areas for the benefit of its nearly 74 million clients. For more than 50 years, JCDecaux has been offering towns aesthetically pleasing street furniture and innovative services. With this new agreement we have reaffirmed our commitment to make our advertising sites the first-choice vectors for connectivity to meet the expectations of citizens and advertisers in the world’s most dynamic cities.”
As the only major Brazilian operator to have grown its client base in 2016, last year Vivo took top place in the magazine Exame’s rankings of the “best and largest” companies in Brazil. This is testament to the company’s ability to offer its clients the most powerful and extensive telecommunications network in the country. The roll-out of Small Cells will allow it to extend even further its coverage and network capacity (number of users and download speed) in the most densely populated urban areas.
Quality and accessibility of telecoms services have become strategic for cities competitiveness and the development of Smart Cities. JCDecaux has once again shown its ability to position itself as a key facilitator in the deployment of Small Cells in city centres, following the Amsterdam bus shelter contract as part of the European agreement with Vodafone across 12 countries in 2015, the framework agreement with Verizon in the USA in 2016, as well as the commercial partnership with Cellnex in Spain and Italy and the Telefónica contract in Panama announced a few weeks ago.
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