Brazil surpassed 150 million broadband connections in April, an increase of 51 percent over the same period last year, reports Telecompaper.com, quoting a survey of the Brazilian Telecommunications Association (Telebrasil), which said that in the last 12 months 51 million new accesses were activated, an activation rate of 1.6 new connections per second.

Mobile broadband, via 3G and 4G networks, led the growth, reaching 127.2 million connections in April, with 63 percent growth compared to April 2013. This includes 111.5 million smartphones and 15.7 million data terminals, such as modems and M2M SIMs.

In fixed broadband, connections totaled 23.1 million in April, among which 2.1 million connections were activated in the last 12 months. The amount of fixed broadband access means that 39 percent of urban Brazilian households have high-speed Internet. In the last 12 months, mobile broadband coverage was activated in 287 new municipalities.

Altogether, 3G networks are installed in 3,658 municipalities, home to 91 percent of Brazilians. The number of broadband 4G users reached 2.5 million, with the LTE service covering 106 Brazilian cities with 37 percent of the total population.