After four years of debate, the Chilean Senate has approved a terrestrial digital TV law. The legislation will go next to Chilean House of Representatives.
The new law is expected to open the market for new channels and technologies. If approved, it could take effect in the coming months and start the digital TV transition with ISDB-T.
Minister Pedro Pablo Errázuriz admitted that “Chile is very technologically behind in this area, and it is time to settle this debt with the Chilean people.” About 40% of the Chilean population can access digital TV channels. With the new law, tenders will be opened for new national, regional and community channels.
Ban: Argentina’s government published a decree (681/2013) in the official Gazette which states that the government could suspend sales of mobile lines if carriers do not improve service quality. The new regulation establishes quality requirements for the provision of telecommunications services to be met by license holders. Last year, Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel banned three carriers from selling new mobile lines because of service quality deficiencies.
Expansion: Telefónica’s mobile unit in Venezuela, Movistar, announced it has expanded its network capacity by deploying new cell sites with a total investment of $5.56 million. According to the carrier, the improvements will allow the addition of 71,820 new voice minutes per hour.
New CEO: Brazil’s telecom group Oi named Zeinal Bava, the former Portugal Telecom CEO, as its new CEO on June 4. The move sent its shares up nearly 16%, Reuters reported. In January, Francisco Valim stepped down as Oi’s CEO. He was temporarily replaced by chairman José Mauro Mettrau Carneiro da Cunha.
Millennial generation: Telefónica released the key findings of its global millennial survey of adults aged 18–30. In the Latin America region, the survey showed that millennials are very comfortable with technology and strongly believe in technology’s ability to effect positive change in society. The millennial generation is a smartphone generation; they are connected and online. On average, millennials spend seven hours online each day. Check out more key findings for LatAm here.
Mobile ads: Opera Mediaworks, the wholly owned subsidiary of Opera Software, released its State of Mobile Advertising report for the Brazilian market. According to the report, the overall Brazilian mobile ad market has been growing at a remarkable pace. In just one year, mobile ad requests have increased an average of more than 11% month over month. As of the end of April 2013, ad requests to Opera’s platform originating from Brazil were almost four-times the volume of just one year ago.
More news from Latin America:
- AT&T Inc. has sold part of its stake in the Latin American phone company América Móvil SAB, which is controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. AT&T reportedly made about $564 million from the sale.
- Brazil’s Embratel, which belongs to América Móvil, launched an online store to sell cloud computing services to small and medium firms.
- IPv6: Telefónica has chosen Peru as the first Latin American country for widespread IPv6 deployment, after successfully completing initial pilots there. About 200,000 Telefónica broadband customers in Peru will use this protocol to access such portals such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo and Wikipedia while maintaining conventional IPv4 addresses.
- A new Berg Insight research report points out that the penetration rate of NFC-ready, point-of-sale terminals in Latin America will be 68% by the end of 2017, while penetration of this technology in the rest of world will reach 39%.
Be sure not to miss what’s happening in Latin America’s wireless markets. Check out RCR Wireless News wrap ups.
