FiBrasil (FiBrasil Infraestrutura e Fibra Ótica SA), a Brazilian company whose focus is the construction and operation of a neutral fibre network, has announced a major acquisition with the potential to boost its coverage plans.
According to the local publication IPNews, FiBrasil recently announced the acquisition of Fiberty 1 SA (formerly Phoenix Fiber do Brasil), which is managed by the Blackstone investment fund. Blackstone is described on its website as the world’s largest alternative asset manager.
The acquisition has taken place only one month after FiBrasil began operations (as we announced in July) – something of a boost therefore to its shareholders' commitment to the advancement of fibre infrastructure.
In fact, Fiberty 1 already has a presence in 170,000 homes (equating to 1,500 km of fibre). This, news reports suggests, will add 11 municipalities to FiBrasil's current reach. But that’s not all.
The deal also takes in another 18 developing cities where operations are expected to be completed between the fourth quarter of this year and the first of 2022. This means another 310,000 homes are going to be covered. FiBrasil’s own coverage target is now 6 million homes, rather than the 5.5 million initially planned.
Neutral fibre is a very popular way of helping populations to access high-speed internet. The idea is that FiBrasil will allow operators to operate in the fibre market, with a large pool of new cities available through the asset-light model – by which companies invest more in operations than they do in hard assets. The upshot, it is hoped, is what is described as ‘the democratization of fast internet access’.
