COPPS SEES AREA FOR INCREASED U.S.-LATIN AMERICA TELECOM DIALOG
ORLANDO -- FCC Comr. Copps told Latin American Conference at CTIA Wireless 2002 here Wed. that U.S. and Latin America could benefit from “more consistent and more intensive dialog,” citing policy areas such as homeland security issues and cooperative efforts. On homeland security, he said making communications systems interoperable and providing for redundancy “is a challenge that faces all of us.” Conference, sponsored by Latin American Wireless Industry Assn. (Alacel) and Cibernet, focused on wireless challenges facing Latin American countries, including persistently low teledensity in some countries and sharp downturn in telecom investment. Telecom investment, which Copps called “crucial driver” of economic change, “is coming back sooner rather than later,” he said: “I think the path is beginning to turn a little bit. I think in the last couple of weeks or so there is a little more optimism.”
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Panels of speakers at daylong conference focused not just on how to pave way for 3G services, which are expected to be widely deployed in Latin America by 2007, but how to get basic services to customers as well, especially in remote areas. Top-ranking regulators from Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay said explosive growth in mobile telephony was helping fuel overall telecom service penetration in many areas. “In this great era of revolutionary communications transformation, having access to advanced communications is really tantamount to a civil right and I wish we would all start thinking about it that way,” Copps said in opening speech at conference.
Copps praised what he saw as regulatory “inventiveness” in many Latin American countries that were expanding on policies such as telecom privation and spectrum auctions. “I don’t think we have auctions perfectly right yet, either,” he said of U.S. “Auctions can be a good thing when they promote competition and diversity and other national goals. When auctions become an end in themselves or an engine to develop revenue, they can be counterproductive. We need to keep working… in order to strike the right balance.” As for signs for brightening financial turnaround in telecom, Copps said: “Maybe I'm in the minority in thinking that… There are financial analysts who, over the past year, have been nothing but pessimistic about the state of the telecom market here in the United States.” But he said same analysts last year were talking about endless prosperity in sector: “I thought at the time that their initial irrational exuberance was off the mark. And I think equally their irrational pessimism is off.”
Fernando Perez Tabo, pres. of Uruguay’s Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones (URSEC), outlined new regulations for telecom his country enacted in May 2001, including conditions for interconnection and radiofrequency allocation. Deregulatory measures, including requirements that dominant telcos provide basic telecom service elements to 3rd parties, has resulted in “demonopolization” of telecom market in Uruguay, Perez said. Two-phased auction of wireless spectrum is to take place later this year for bands that Perez said would provide “absolute freedom” for operators to develop technology they thought was most appropriate. Blocks of spectrum at 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz will be up for competitive bidding, with option to pair spectrum with block at 2.1 GHz, Perez said. He stressed flexible uses that govt. was allowing for licenses, which will run 20 years and can be transferred and divided with prior govt. approval. Spectrum can be used for PCS, IMT- 2000, GSM 1800 MHz and other GSM-based versions of 3G, he said. Regulator imposed cap of 15 MHz per band for each operator and total of 60 MHz across all these bands, he said.
Next month, Ecuador is to begin auction for fixed wireless licenses for local, value-added and other services, said Freddy Villao, national coordinator for Ecuadorian regulator Conatel. In Feb., Conatel signed agreement to assign band for mobile services, with auction expected to begin by June or July, Villao said. Like others on panel, he said teledensity growth for cellular communications was far outpacing gains on wireline side. For fixed lines, teledensity increased to 10.15 lines per 100 inhabitants by end of 2001, compared with 9.67 in 2000, and cellular teledensity reached 7.16 wireless connections per 100 from 3.8 in 2000, Villao said.
For Mexico, challenge of improving teledensity figures is particularly tough in southern part of country, said Abel Hibert, comr. of economic area for Mexico’s Comision Federal de Telecomunicaciones (Cofetel). Country has 13.7 lines per 100 inhabitants, although that figure could vary significantly by region, he said. In areas such as Lower California in Mexico, teledensity is closer to 53.6%, although in some southern states figure is only 8-10%, he said. “Our desire is to try and close the gap as much as possible,” Hibert said, and “explosive” mobile phone growth is helping in many areas. Mexico has set goal of reaching 26 lines per 100 inhabitants in 2006, he said.
In response to question about service that can be “quite bad” in Mexico because of lack of network coverage in some areas, Hibert said: “I share your concern.” Tower siting is one of biggest problems Cofetel faces, particularly because people are reluctant to have antennas sited in their areas, he said. Cofetel is working with state and municipal govts. to try to raise awareness of issue, he said.