The path is clear for Telefónica, who seeks to provide cable television to the entire Brazil market. This market is the most critical for the Spanish multinational judging by their earnings and total number of clients.
With this move, César Alierta's company will find diversify audiovisual product offerings and enrich mobile and landline telephone services in Brazil.
The deal hinges on whether Brazil president Dilma Rousseff will sanction the project by updating a law that restricts national and foreign telecom companies' access to cable television markets. Once this formal step is resolved, the coast is clear for Telefónica to start raking in profits in the region.
The law referred to above, introduced by the Brazilian legislature, puts an end to restriction that states that no more than 59% of companies working in the Brazilian cable television market can be foreign. Likewise, this project opens the door for other telecoms to operate within the market, something that until now was not permitted.
Telefónica has postponed the launch of its ?Imagenio? service in Brazil and has not been able to develop the ?quadruple play,? a service package of landline telephone, mobile telephone, internet and cable television. The telecom has already unveiled this package in other Latin American countries.
Through Telesp, Telefónica is managing 682 thousand cable television subscribers just in the state of Sao Paulo, a figure which includes the 150 thousand who subscribe to the Brazilian cable company TVA.
