Andean countries agree on liberalization of telecommunications services

Cartagena de Indias, May 24. The Andean Committee of Telecommunications Authorities (CAATEL) agreed to liberalize all telecommunications services, except for sound broadcasting and television, starting on January 1, 2002. The intention is to eliminate all obstacles to free trade in that sector and to bring about the harmonization of provisions so that a Common Andean Market in Telecommunications Services may be progressively shaped.

The agreement was reached at the CAATEL meeting that was held on the occasion of the XI Andean Presidential Summit and that closed today in Cartagena.

The draft Decision, entitled "Provisions Regulating the Integration and Liberalization of the Trade in Telecommunications Services in the Andean Community" (CAN), establishes principles and commitments, together with a liberalization timetable.

It is based on the principles and commitments set out in Decision 439 on the liberalization of the trade in services in the Andean countries: access to the market, most-favored-nation treatment, national treatment, transparency, status quo, and the removal of restrictive measures.

A liberalization timetable, divided into two stages, was prepared for those countries that have not yet completed the liberalization of their markets. During the first stage, starting on January 1, 2000, "restrictive measures concerning telecommunications services other than local basic, national and international, and mobile land telephony will be removed."

In the second stage, to run as of January 1, 2002, all telecommunications services, except for sound broadcasting and television, will operate without restriction. It was also agreed to grant Ecuador a longer period in which to liberalize certain services.

The provisions will be applicable to all measures taken by Member Countries that affect access to telecommunications transmission networks and services, together with their use by users from the five Andean countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

They will also apply to measures adopted or maintained by a Member Country that affect the provision and the trade in telecommunications services and to all provisions concerning standardization of the connection of terminals or other equipment to public telecommunications transmission networks.

The draft Decision contains a series of provisions for guaranteeing that each Member Country accords servers from any other Member Country national treatment in their access to the public telecommunications transmission services offered in its territory.

The Member Countries commit themselves, as well, to facilitate the provision of services in their territory by telecommunications servers that request it and to promote the harmonizing of requirements and compulsory procedures for issuing authorization certificates, within a period not to exceed twelve months as of the date this provision becomes effective.

Over the next twelve months, the Committee will devote its efforts to drawing up Common Provisions on Interconnection and preparing a working program for drafting recommendations to harmonize the radio spectrum, the numbering and the numerical transmission ability.

Another group of commitments concern measures for standardizing and authorizing terminals; the safeguarding of free competition, the principles of transparency; and the rights of final users so that they may receive equal, non-discriminatory treatment, with a free choice of server and a knowledge of the rates charged.

CAN General Secretariat officers emphasized the importance of this draft Decision because they consider that it will have a significant impact on both the subregional market and the Andean countries' interconnection with the rest of the world.

Integration and liberalization of the trade in telecommunications services will permit an open market to operate, resting on Community provisions that ensure investment stability and boost the growth of one of the key sectors for the subregion's economic and social development.