by David Hartshorn

Those not already fluent in Spanish and Portuguese would be well advised to invest in a crash course.

While Latin America has traditionally comprised less than 15 percent of the global installed base of advanced VSAT-based networks, the bar chart will soon be redrawn, thanks largely to a rethink of satellite regulation in the region.

Latin American governments began the process by paying more than lip service to privatization and competition in the telecom sector. According to the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) latest indicators, no less than 70 percent of the Americas’ telecom companies have been privatized, compared with 55 percent, 46 percent, 33 percent, and 28 percent in Europe, Asia, the Arab states and Africa, respectively.

Privatization is attracting billions of dollars in investment that can be used by operators to strengthen service portfolios with, among other offerings, VSAT-based solutions for corporate networks, distance learning, rural telephony, telemedicine and a host of other mission-critical multi-media applications.

The Americas, meanwhile, chalked up the second highest percentage of countries with competition in basic services with 30 percent. Only Europe–with 39 percent–exceeds the region. And more than 60 percent of all the Americas’ services have now been liberalized.

By no coincidence, the Americas boast the highest percentage of new regulators in the world. That’s 65 percent, compared with 49 percent in Europe, 46 percent in Africa, 29 percent in Asia and 24 percent in the Arab states. To put a finer point on it, there are 22 regulatory agencies in the Americas today, compared with just four at the beginning of the 1990s.

These new regulators are the architects of Latin America’s recent deregulation–a renaissance that continues apace. Just days before this article was written, Dr. Henoch Aguiar, Argentina’s Secretary of Communications, was quoted at ITU Telecom 2000 in Rio de Janeiro as saying, “If we really want to foster change, the state must refrain from interfering or imposing. All it has to do is open up the market to competition.”

Such statements are being made with genuine conviction, because Argentina’s and other Latin American nations’ reforms have already yielded tangible results. For example, the region’s private sector bounded into the Internet arena last year, recording a 136 percent increase in Internet hosts, compared with 74 percent in North America, 61 percent in Asia, 30 percent in Europe, and 18 percent in Africa.

Encouraged by such gains–and noting that satellite-delivered IP services increased by more than 800 percent in the past two years, according to DTT Consulting–regulators are now focusing on VSAT-based solutions as another means of facilitating Internet and, indeed, the full complement of telecom services.

Once again, Dr. Aguiar provides an excellent case in point. The Argentinian secretary expressed his interest in extending reforms to the international VSAT industry which, through the Global VSAT Forum (GVF), was recently invited to conduct a seminar at the Comision Nacional de Comunicaciones in Buenos Aires. (The invitation followed a similar GVF regulatory seminar last year with Brazil’s regulator, Anatel.)

Argentina’s timing was fortuitous. Just two weeks before the GVF seminar, the 43 nations of Europe’s Council of European Posts and Telecommunications adopted GVF-supported regional VSAT licensing reforms.

The European breakthrough, which resulted from months of meetings, studies and negotiations, establishes a principle for European administrations to exempt interactive Ku- and Ka-band VSAT terminals from individual licensing requirements, provided the systems meet pre-determined criteria.

Nearly 20 European nations have already said they were prepared to implement the reforms nationally, and the new policy could serve as a model not only for reform-minded administrations like Argentina, but also for every regional telecom organization in the world–not least the Inter-American Conference on Telecommunications (CITEL).

CITEL, meanwhile, has demonstrated its commitment to implementing regional satellite policy solutions. Even now, its member states are providing information related to their VSAT regulatory requirements for use in a public database on a Website administered by the Organization of American States. The facility enables industry to obtain licensing information more efficiently, thereby lowering market-entry costs and quickening the time to market.

CITEL’s signatories also aim to ratify a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for testing and certification of telecommunications equipment. Once the MRA is implemented, it will deter signatory countries from using the issue of equipment certification as a non-tariff barrier to hinder the import of telecoms products, including VSATs.

Such reforms, when combined with the strengths inherent in fixed satellite-based solutions, will enable operators to offer local businesses, governments and consumers with cost-effective access to state-of-the-art, narrowband and broadband services. Those services will, in turn, translate into new investment, jobs, and export earnings.

Now, that’s a language that we can all understand.

David Hartshorn is the Secretary General of the Global VSAT Forum. For more information, e-mail: [email protected].