On December 6, the Brazilian Senate approved the set of Changes in the General Telecommunications Law of 1997, which will allow (a) the migration of fixed telephony concessionaires to the authorization regime upon their request, which may give them greater autonomy over decisions regarding investments and definition of prices for pay TV services, mobile telephony and internet connection; and (b) the conversion of the concession's reversible assets, consisting of buildings and infrastructures that were to be returned to the Federal Government in 2025, into a new investment in broadband network.
Currently, fixed telephony concessions impose obligations for concessionaires such as universalization of services and installation of public payphones. With the change, if the bill of law is approved, companies shall undertake investment commitments instead of these obligations. The bill of law also includes possibilities for extending the authorization several times and the resale of the frequency authorization by the operators, as long as it is approved by Anatel.
This newsletter was authored by Marcela Waksman Ejnisman, partner at Telecommunications / Information Technology sector group.