Letter written by co-researcher and academic Javier García published by La Tercera on January 4th, 2024 in the context of the reform process of the Telecommunications Law initiated by the Telecommunications Undersecretariat (SUBTEL), which had an open public consultation in December 2023.
The telecommunications sector is evolving much faster than the regulatory and institutional framework that regulates it: a Telecommunications Law from 1982 that is patched up and a Telecommunications Undersecretariat (SUBTEL) created in 1977.
For this reason, it is very good news that SUBTEL ended the year with an initiated process to modify the telecommunications sector’s authorization model, whose last update is from 30 years ago. In less refined words yet in accordance with fashionable terms, the reform of permitting in telecommunications has come. It is also positive that this process is accompanied by citizen participation mechanisms such as the public consultation carried out in December, which allowed interested parties to make comments and contributions.
Nonetheless, this necessary regulatory review is insufficient for an increasingly complex sector that requires an institutional modernization like the one carried out, with more or less success, in other countries of the region, which entailed creating autonomous authorities with more resources and capacity for action. In Chile, this road began in 2011 with a bill to create the Telecommunications Superintendence that was abandoned. The Telecommunications Law reform is an opportunity to resume the pending institutional modernization. Better late than never.
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