The Internet and the community in Brazil: background, issues, and options

The Internet in Brazil is experiencing explosive growth. Spawned by a newsmedia-driven public interest which began in early 1994, this growth has taken unique paths. In a country where the entire data communications and telephone services infrastructure is under a state monopoly, Internet services to final users are scattered through hundreds of private providers of all sizes, while Internet backbones operated by transnational companies are being installed to compete with a state-funded backbone and a state-owned backbone. This article describes nongovernmental networking activity and how it evolved from a purely academic network to one serving a much larger public.