The minister of Communications, André Figueiredo, and RNP’s director general, Nelson Simões, entered, in Brasília, into a technical cooperation agreement that sets forth the oversight and audit, by RNP, of the metropolitan networks installation works for the Digital Cities project (Cidades Digitais, in portuguese) within 36 months after its execution.

In counterparty, the organization shall be entitled to use the Digital Cities project infrastructure, that is, a pair of optic fibers per site, in the Research and Education Community Networks program (Redecomep), as a free-of-charge assignment.

The minister stated that “the sharing of the Digital Cities infrastructure will allow us to obtain a large cooperation network within RNP’s expertise”. “Due to the Brasil Inteligente program, we need to develop such infrastructure”, he said, referring to the initiative launched yesterday (May 9th), which is considered the new stage of the National Broadband Plan. The project is intended to ensure access to high-speed broadband for 95% of the population and increase from 53% to 70% the number of cities covered with optic fiber networks, by 2018.

The Digital Cities program, for its turn, is intended to modernize the management, expand the access to public services and foster the development of the Brazilian cities by means of the construction of optic fiber networks connecting the local public entities, of the qualification of public servants, of the offer of Internet connection points in public spaces and of the provision of electronic government applications to the city councils.