ICT regulatory watch: Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Honduras, Brazil

Ecuador's national assembly approved in a second debate a digital and audiovisual transformation bill, which is a legal framework aimed at attracting more investment to the audiovisual industry. 

The law comes with tax breaks of up to 37% of the expenditure for audiovisual productions in the country.

It also includes the implementation of e-signature and digital education at all levels of the educational system, and it will support the creation of community-based telecom networks.

The new legislation comes with reforms to several other laws, including those for telecommunications, taxation, e-commerce and education.

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The Chilean environment ministry has opened a public consultation for a proposed electromagnetic radiation limit regulation for mobile phone base stations. The consultation will be available at this link until March 28.

The proposal sets a power density limit of 10 microwatts per square centimeter (mw/cm2), with special protection areas where the limit would be 5.8mw/cm2. The current limit is 100mw/cm2.

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Peruvian telecom regulator Osiptel approved an infrastructure-sharing agreement between local telco Unión Telecomunicaciones (Untel) and regional electricity utility Electrocentro.

The agreement will see Untel provide fiber optic cable support and equipment installation services to Electrocentro.

Electrocentro distributes electricity in the departments of Ayacucho, Huánuco, Huancavelica, Junín, Pasco, Lima, Cusco and San Martín. The sharing agreement is only for Huancayo, but it can be expanded to other departments.

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Uruguay's industry, energy and mining ministry published a decree with the approval of new rates for the telephony services provided by state-owned Antel.

Antel had announced in December that it would increase its prices this year to keep up with inflation. On average, mobile services will see a hike of 2% while fixed internet and telephony will climb by 2.65%.

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Honduran sector regulator Conatel opened a public consultation for the draft regulatory resolution to establish a Sender Keep All peering arrangement for state-owned teleco Hondutel in relation to other Central American countries. 

The consultation period will end on January 25.

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Telecommunications and data protection bills were submitted and debated in this year's first session of the Guatemalan congress.

The first debate focused on a bill that modifies the general telecommunications law to extend the frequencies used by fire brigades for 25 years. A proposal for a data protection law was also submitted to the transparency and probity committee.

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Brazil’s science, technology and innovation minister, Luciana Santos, appointed Luis Fernandes as the ministry's (MCTI) executive secretary and Celso Pansera as president of state-owned Finep.

Finep is one of the country's main innovation promotion bodies and oversees the fund for scientific and technological development.