Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

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c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
the concept of condominium networks, the initiative was that the city would implement
a new municipal network responding to public and private connections 3 need.
This network was built through partnerships with the private sector and includes
telecommunication and data services from all city, housing and transport agencies,
1,600 public schools and colleges.
In Brazil, in privatization process gaps that allow the establishment of limited
or restricted communication service providers to meet corporate networks, communication
networks themselves have emerged as in the Universidade Federal Fluminense
case. Today this network is used to address all needs of the institution’s
internal communication, including telephone, while still allow Internet access in all
University buildings.
In Curitiba, the Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) followed the same
path and even included in their network two Universidade Católica campuses
(PUC-PR), the Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica campus (CEFET-PR) and
a technology company, Centro Internacional de Tecnologia de Software (CITS).
The condominium community networks initiatives put the discussion of broadband
Internet in the local development projects sector, expanding the city administration’s
power of action. The Porto Alegre initiative, for example, has innovated
with legal definitions of municipal powers. Based on federal laws on the Environment
4 , the city administration created, in 1998, a law that organizes air and underground
occupation: those interested in establishing or expanding services that
require underground cables are to be billed monthly by the city. A city ordinance
from 2000 determined that the city administration could accept products from
companies as payment. It was also accepted payment through the deployment of
fiber optic cables or manholes. The amount invested by the company was deducted
from monthly fee to be paid to the city for underground use. A primary result of the
environmental licensing for infrastructure networks was the construction of Infovia
Procempa (Companhia de Processamento de Dados de Porto Alegre), deployed with
3. (http://www.cityofchicago.org/CivicNet, accessed on December 20th 2005).
4. The 1997 Resolution of the National Environment Council (Conselho Nacional do Meio Ambiente,
Conama) assigned to municipalities the authority to formulate its own laws, defining activities
or ventures subject to licensing, according to local context. Based on this resolution, the Porto Alegre
city administration has created the legislation that defined urban operation in the deployment of local
telecommunications network.
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