Dominican Rep launches consultation for 2023-24 project plan

Dominican Republic telecom regulator Indotel has launched a public consultation on the biannual plan for development projects for 2023-24.

The public consultation will be open until April 6, 2023.

The plan includes an infrastructure access component with projects involving investments of 80.6mn pesos (US$1.45mn).

Two initiatives are included that have the objective of improving rural telecommunications access: the mobile services project for northern Elías Piña and the telecommunications services project for rural communities.

The former entails the construction and commissioning of a telecommunications tower by Claro as part of the conditions included in the 3.5GHz spectrum tender.

The second initiative involves building and commissioning infrastructure through a subsidy provided by Indotel via the telecommunications development fund (FDT) to serve selected communities under the cluster modality. The beneficiaries of this project will receive a telecommunications service subsidy for 24 months.

The project will impact around 24 communities in the north of Elías Piña province and rural communities in nine other provinces.

The plan also includes initiatives to promote the use and appropriation of technologies, subsidies for demand and development of digital skills.

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The Uruguayan government has given companies an additional 10 days to comment on the draft bidding document for the allocation of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band for 5G services, local news outlet Montevideo Portal reported.

The bases proposed by regulator Ursec were criticized by various stakeholders in the Uruguayan telecommunications market, with the watchdog receiving feedback from Antel, Movistar, Claro, Dedicado, GSMA, 5G Americas and Asiet.

The spectrum auction is expected to take place in April.

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The public works ministry reported that Bolivian watchdog ATT will chair the Regulatel forum for telecom regulatory bodies, the public works ministry (MOPSV) reported.

The forum, which includes regulators from 23 different countries, addresses policy issues, market strategies and regulations in the ICT sector.

The MOPSV also reported that Bolivia had signed an MoU with three Latin American regulators: Brazil's Anatel, Mexico's IFT and Peru's Osiptel to establish technical and institutional cooperation in telecommunications. 

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Venezuelan regulator Conatel has organized a public hearing for March 15 to receive comments and suggestions related to the reform of the qualification conditions for free-use equipment.

The aim is to establish the conditions that equipment must meet to be qualified as being for free use in compliance with the provisions of the organic telecommunications law.

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Peruvian regulator Osiptel has approved the publication for comment of the draft standard regulating the management of complaints from users of telecommunications services. 

The standard will be available for comment for 20 calendar days.

The bill amends articles of the complaint management standard related to reports on quality and outages, interoperable systems and the regime of rule breaches and related punishments.

More information can be seen here, in Spanish.

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Peru has appointed Renato Delgado Flores as executive director of Pronatel, an agency of the MTC ministry responsible for promoting access to telecommunications services in rural and social interest areas.