Govt. expanding Gesac program

Brazil's communication ministry plans to expand its Gesac digital inclusion program to reach 6 million users in low income groups by the end of the year, online news magazine B2B reported. The expansion means increasing the PC supply requirement to 25,000 rather than 18,000 and increasing coverage to 4,400 access points in 4,000 cities all over Brazil. The program has 3,200 access points in 2,000 municipalities today. The communication ministry estimates each access point will generate monthly operating costs of 1,100 reais (US$404), even though telcos will allow each point to use 20,000 free minutes for telephony each month. But the figures show that the digital inclusion program is possible, the communication ministry's technical consultant Benedito Medeios said. This year's Gesac investment will be 70mn reais, part of a wider digital inclusion program the federal government is undertaking to offer services such as internet access to low income groups. Earlier this month the communication ministry said the Gesac program should be 27mn reais cheaper than originally planned because of the software license savings gained by migrating to Linux open source applications.