Justice allows the blocking of the internet after termination of the franchise

In a decision that goes against the grain of what we understand as reasonable, the Procon’s of all Brazil and Anatel-national telecommunication Agency, federal regulatory authority of mobile telephony in Brazil, suspended all decisions favourable to consumers in the case of the internet blockade after the monthly franchise in all Brazilian States.

Judgments in force forbade the lock in the States of São Paulo, Mato Grosso, Paraná and Santa Catarina, which ceased to be worth until they decide what the judgment is competent to hear the case. The decision strictly procedural, not the merits of the question, that is, will still be tried if the lock is allowed or not.

It turns out that, in the meantime, users will have to pay more for the service when they are blocked, migrating to more expensive data plans. The decision failed to take into account the negative impacts to the consumer, you have your rights curtailed again, this time by his own Justice. The decision did not take into account the damage to millions of users using the blocking of data with applications “Over the Top”, being the most used today worldwide the Whats’App that will be unavailable during the blockade.

Incidentally, this change in the form of collection of the data plan, which is illegal for having been held unilaterally by the operators, signals a trend of the global mobile phone market should react against falling revenue from carriers that send SMS applications and allow you to make free calls, like Facebook and Skype, being the Whats’App only the most famous of them.

To name just some statistics of the Whats’App, which in its last update released links feature, according to Teleco, the average amount of minutes per month dropped from 134 to 111 in the period from January to March of this year. During this period, the application was available only to customers with a smartphone on the Android platform. In April, the feature became available to users of the IOS platform, used by Iphones. The latest will allow mobile phones to send audio files to users who use in their computers the 8.1 version of Windows.

This is just one chapter of a fight of titans of technology, Google (which in the us is already mobile operator), Microsoft (owner of Skype) and Facebook (owner of Whats ´ App) that are invading the business of telecom operators. Recently, the President of Telefonica, Phil Jordan, said that if the carriers don’t restructure risk losing the business.

He was referring to the fall in revenues and also the operational and administrative aspects of the carriers. With these competitors lurking, your concerns are not vain. On the contrary, especially considering the ability to innovate, invest and relate to the native audience of the information society. Another feature of the Titans of technology is how fast and frugal in their staffs, unlike operators who have inherited the legacy of heavy state colossal administrative structures.

Dane Avanzi is businessman, lawyer and Vice President of Aerbras-Association of radio Companies of Brazil.