Brazilian telecom giant Telefonica Brasil (Vivo) has selected Quantenna Communications, a developer of high-performance Wi-Fi services, to power its forthcoming launch of wireless IPTV in Brazil. Unveiled at the ABTA Expo and Conference, Business Wire notes that the Vivo TV Fiber Wi-Fi Decoder ‘eliminates the need for wired TV connections, delivering crystal-clear HD video to any TV anywhere in the home within range of its Wi-Fi signal’. The system operates via 4×4 Wi-Fi architecture, enabling Vivo TV Fiber subscribers to enjoy separate HD video streams on multiple TVs at once. The move is the result of a 2011 tie-up under which Telefonica’s venture capital arm, Telefonica Ventures, invested in Quantenna as a core component of its IPTV deployment strategy in Europe and Latin America.
Telefonica Brasil (Vivo) is the largest mobile company in Brazil, with 79.4 million customers at end-June 2014. It is present in more than 3,700 cities nationwide, over 3,100 of them with access to the cellco’s 3G network and 98 covered with 4G.