Regulatory roundup: Spectrum pricing, emergency plan, cybersecurity and more

Spectrum prices

Mexico does not plan to reduce the price of spectrum rights next year but will not adjust them for inflation either.

According to the draft federal rights law for 2025, the government will maintain the criteria for defining the compensation and annual payments for the rights to operate frequencies for the third consecutive year, local newspaper El Economista reported.

The price of spectrum in Mexico has been a source of complaint by mobile operators, who claim it is twice the international average. The high cost has led operators to return bands and frequency auctions to be abandoned.

Emergency plan

The Chilean government and telecommunications companies have agreed on a plan to safeguard digital connectivity services in the event of wildfires or other climate emergencies.

The protocol includes the deployment of vehicles that can provide mobile coverage in affected areas in the event of a network failure.

In addition, it was agreed that telecommunications companies will activate plans and protocols to protect against red, yellow or other alerts; analysis and monitoring of emergency messaging; and coordination of activities to improve communication between the network operations center of regulator Subtel and telecommunications operators, among others.

The agreement comes ahead of the start of the wildfire season.

Plan information law

A law came into force in Chile on Friday that requires telecommunications operators to report the existence of plans that are objectively better for users.

The national director of consumer defense service Sernac, Andrés Herrera, said in a statement that "this reform seeks to ensure that, in the case of clients who have contracted services with a certain company, the company itself proactively informs them which are the objectively best plans, their technical characteristics and/or their price."

Cybersecurity

Paraguay's ICT ministry Mitic opened a public consultation on the national cybersecurity strategy 2024-28. The consultation will be open until December 6.

The new strategy, which was supported by the OAS and CICTE (Inter-American Committee against Terrorism), aims to strengthen the country's capabilities to face the challenges of the digital environment.

Consultation

Colombian ICT ministry Mintic will put out to public consultation the resolution that sets the new rate for the payment for the provision of telecommunications networks and services.

The proposal is that from 2025 the rate will be 2% of gross revenues generated by telecommunications networks or services, excluding terminals.

The document will be available for comments until November 27 at the following link.

In addition, the ministry published last week a resolution establishing a single application form for authorization for the deployment of telecommunications networks and infrastructure.

Frequency allocation

Colombia's Mintic also granted permits for the use of radio spectrum by the companies Internexa and Antena Suramericana de Vigilancia Comercial Asvic, within the framework of the selection process that the ministry carries out weekly.

Internexa received spectrum in the EHF band while Antena Suramericana de Vigilancia Comercial Asvic received frequencies in the HF, VHF and UHF bands.

In the process, the ministry made available to interested parties frequencies in the HF bands in the range of 3MHz to 30MHz, VHF in the range of 138MHz to 174MHz, UHF in the ranges of 440MHz to 470MHz and 2025MHz to 2110MHz, SHF in the range of 3.7GHz to 23.6GHz, and EHF in the ranges of 71GHz to 76GHz and 81GHz to 86GHz.