Attempts at privatization began during Fernando Collor de Mello's administration in 1990, as part of an economic reform dubbed National Privatization Program (Portuguese: Programa Nacional de Desestatização), within the Plano Collor, which was conducted by then-finance minister Zélia Cardoso de Mello[1] The privatization was carried out some 8 years later during the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, on July 29, 1998.

[3] According to Carlos Henrique Moreira (president of Embratel), in the eight years after the privatization, from 1998 to 2006, the fixed and mobile telephone subscriber base increased by 27.4 million to 139 million, at an annual rate of 20%, generating an annual increase of income of 18%, from R$31 billion to R$121 billion).

[4]" In the early days of the state-owned operation, some employees were auctioning off telephone lines in a scheme to pocket more cash from the highest bidders.

[3] With an investment of 200 million reais in late 2007 by the Federal Government, Telebras became the holding company of Fust resources and aims to be the administrator of a large network of optical fiber already deployed in the towers still owned by Eletrobrás and fiber optical networks that belong to Petrobras.

The company is building a large national information highway that will serve the more remote locations of the country with digital inclusion to the populations served by public schools, public administrations, among others, in addition to providing (wholesale) interconnection providers of last mile.