Zero roaming charges by 2020 among Pacific Alliance goals

Zero roaming charges by 2020 is one of eight goals Colombia's ICT ministry (Mintic) plans to address during the country's period as leader of the Pacific Alliance. The bloc is comprised of Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru.

The goal of eliminating roaming charges was announced by Colombian President Manuel Santos last year but the idea has been refreshed by Mintic minister David Luna.

Luna will be leading the digital agenda of the four country bloc and said that the idea is to increasingly reduce them down to zero by 2020, as reported by local press.

The idea is inspired by the EU eliminating roaming charges last month, and is also part of a push for a single digital market in Latin America; an initiative by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) that was referred to frequently during panel discussions at the CLT Latin American telecoms conference in Cartagena, Colombia last month.

Mintic outlined seven other points it plans to address as part of its digital agenda, which are:

- Sharing Colombia's methodology for forming a digital economy observatory that monitors and contributes to the digitalization of different industries.

- Launching a common regional platform for helping IT companies offer home-grown digital applications and content.

- Creating a platform to facilitate the distribution of digital content that respects intellectual property rights.

- Sharing with member countries Colombia's methodology and research into how to break down obstacles to the spread of e-commerce.

- Joining forces to offer scholarships for students wishing to study IT-related subjects in any one of the member countries.

- Integrating government open data platforms. Colombia's platform www.datos.gov.co already has 4,900 documents published.

- Sharing experiences in digital security among member states to define protocols for protecting critical infrastructure.

Colombia's presidency of the alliance will last a year and rotates among member states in alphabetical order.