Vitória da Conquista is one of the cities encompassed by the Digital City Program, of current Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC), which aims the greater digital inclusion to build fiber optic networks in countryside cities and install access points to the Internet in public places for free use. With 340,000 inhabitants, Vitória da Conquista reached a high-speed infrastructure after the installation of a fiber optic ring that connects municipal government agencies and an internet signal that reaches localities of the rural area.

The encouragement to improve connectivity in the city started in 2007, by parliamentary initiative and resources of the then Ministry of Science and Technology, which was not completed. In 2011, the project was taken over by the local government authority, with its very resources. It was built an infrastructure connections of Radiofrequency consists of three towers of 35 meters high, which connected 141 access points in urban areas, from a central core, in the city hall, which sends the signal from the internet for some parts of rural area. In this first stage, several local government agencies have access to the Internet, including 18 municipal offices, 42 schools, 19 kindergartens and 30 health units.

One of these schools is located in Xavier, where it had installed in 2011 access point to internet, open to public. Thus, many villagers had the opportunity to enroll in higher education courses at Education System Distance and sought academic training. Today, the same access point benefit more than 60 families before the network had to travel to Vitoria da Conquista center and look for a Lan gaming center.

According to the IT Coordinator of Vitória da Conquista’s local city government, Marlúcio Lopes, the Xavier's village community sought the local authority at the time asking for internet signal, generating a technical feasibility demand served by municipal own resources. “An access point in the school computer lab was installed, and the community requested to open access for use outside the school boundaries. Today, a community provider was found for the training of technicians in the region”, says Marlúcio.

Meanwhile, in the year of 2012, Vitória da Conquista was one of 80 cities selected by the then Ministry of Communications to participate in the Digital Cities Program's pilot phase. The proposal was to install a fiber optic ring of 25 kilometers to serve the 14 municipal government agencies, two federal institutions of higher education and a state - the Federal Institute of Bahia (IFBA), the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and the State University of Bahia (UESB), connected to the academic network for links contracted with operators and providers - in addition to building an access point in a public place.

Released in May, 2014, the optical fiber ring in Vitória da Conquista provided a better offer in public services to population and powered the internet access, this time through optical fiber. According to the city, an example is the central laboratory of the city, where 60,000 tests per month are conducted, the results of which are sent over the Internet. In the center of regulation of beds, a service to streamline the hospitalization process was possible between 73 cities in the region.

Currently, in its second phase and with more than 300 cities covered, the Digital Cities Program started a step of cooperation agreements with the state governments, aiming to enable the optical fiber infrastructure maintenance and installation jointly to cities. The partnerships will allow infrastructure share in several administrative levels, which will reduce costs and also will enable the states to use the network implemented to connect public services and improve management.

One of the Ministry partnerships was signed with RNP [Brazilian National Research and Educational Network], which started to be entitled to use optical fiber pairs in this metropolitan networks built by the Digital Cities Program, in exchange for the completion of the acceptance of service, that is, inspection and conformity assessment of deployments of these networks. The cities in the countryside of Piaui, Amazonas (Coari) and São Paulo (Santa Gertrudes and Penápolis) have already been inspected. “In some of these cities, we have institutions using RNP, for example, in Coari and Vitoria da Conquista. We are interested in, from the pair of fibers that receive these cities, induce the creation of a local Steering Committee for regional support RNP and the shared management of the infrastructure”, says the Director of Engineering and Operations of RNP, Eduardo Grizendi.

Thus, the south-west city of Bahia goes forward for a leading position in innovation and connectivity with the negotiation of a project to build a proof of concept using a modular curb, technology patented by RNP, in an avenue of Conquista da Vitória, where the fiber optic cable will inside the curb of concrete part, an innovative solution in Brazil for the expansion of telecommunications networks in the urban environment.

Photo: Vitória da Conquista's City Hall (Bahia).