Lower house calls for secondary sector supervisor

Chile's lower house has voted in favor of asking President Ricardo Lagos to order the creation of a telecoms sector agency to carry out the supervisory role of the regulator Subtel, according to a lower house statement. The agency would be answerable to Subtel, a lower house representative told BNamericas. "The current regulatory system is sufficient and this decision is a reaction by certain politicians who are mystified by a complicated sector which they view as difficult to control," according to Patricio Hales, chairman of the lower house commission on public works, transport and telecommunications. Hales did not see any particular disadvantage in creating a new regulatory body, but said "one should be careful not to over-bureaucratize, as that can lead to more rules on paper rather than more actual regulation." The decision came about as a result of a special lower house session to discuss the government's efforts to set rate ceilings for mobile operators, including the interconnection fees they may charge fixed line operators. Initially those politicians accepted the mobile operators' threats that Subtel's plans to cut fixed to mobile interconnection fees would affect users, but as a result of the special session they have seen their error, he said. Lower house representative Zarko Luksic of the Christian Democrat (DC) party called the special session to clear up discrepancies in the information supplied by the various operators and in current regulations as to handset value, the use of cross subsidies and excessive subsidizing of services for corporate clients.