Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel escalates efforts to combat unlicensed broadband providers, revealing hundreds of investigations, arrests, and stolen hardware seizures as part of a new enforcement push.
The Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel is stepping up enforcement against fixed broadband providers that operate without authorisation, with 418 investigations now under way, according to figures presented at the VI TelComp Symposium in Brasília. The agency says the current campaign has already uncovered more than R$620,000 in stolen equipment and led to 8 arrests.
The scrutiny forms part of Anatel’s action plan to curb unfair competition and bring fixed broadband providers into compliance. It is not limited to firms that lack a licence. The regulator is also examining 49 authorised operators, checking a wider set of obligations that include tax status, labour documentation, access records, network stations and the use of utility poles.
Anatel has also begun relying on data analysis to launch inspections on its own initiative, rather than waiting only for referrals from other departments. That matters because the agency says broadband reporting remains incomplete: when the plan was approved in 2025, Brazil had about 21,000 operators, but only around 10,000 were submitting access data, 7,000 were providing financial information and 5,500 had any pole-related records on file.
The crackdown has sharpened since the first nationwide phase of Operação Provedor Legal in March 2026, when Anatel acted across all 27 states with police support. The agency said then that 52% of targets were operating clandestinely, while 15 companies were fined and 6 people were arrested. In May, a second phase focused on the south-east, and in July a further round found that 30% of inspected entities were operating entirely illegally, according to Telesíntese. Hardware.com.br reported in May that Anatel removed 5,085 broadband providers from its registry for lacking proper authorisation.
Anatel is also tracing the origin of network equipment and building a map of thefts and attacks on telecoms infrastructure to share with public security agencies. Where stolen hardware is found in a network, the regulator says the material may be passed to police. It has warned wholesale capacity suppliers to cut off service to any customer later found to be operating clandestinely. The agency is also preparing a regularity seal to help consumers identify compliant providers, while stressing that the first objective is to regularise companies rather than punish them immediately.
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