By Wendy Anders

Costa Rica’s telecommunications regulator, the Superintendency of Telecommunications (Sutel), has proposed new practices to increase competition among phone and Internet providers.

The proposal, which is open for a 10-day public consultation period, includes a greater opening of international telephone services, internet plans, international roaming, and telecommunications traffic to competition.

The proposal is the result of a technical study which analyzed the country’s telecommunications sector to understand the level of competition prevailing in the country’s 11 different telecom markets.

The analysis was endorsed by the Commission for the Promotion of Competition (COPROCOM) in 2015 after a public consultation process, and is based on a number of parameters that identify the degree of competition and whether there is market dominance among operators.

One aspect of the current proposal is to eliminate price regulation for international telephone, Internet, and international roaming. Regulation of service quality will continue to operate in the same way, said Sutel.

The mobile phone market would remain a regulated market, detailed Sutel. However, postpaid Internet plans were singled out as being a barrier to effective competition and under the new regulations would no longer have their rates regulated by Sutel.

Mobile prepaid segment would however stay under their current Sutel tariff regulations.

“We hope for active involvement in this process of public consultation, as this type of mechanism strengthens institutional transparency, contributes to adequate feedback from a variety of actors, and also helps to strengthen the decisions of the regulatory body,” said Walther Herrera, general director of markets for Sutel.

The technical document with the proposal will be available for consultation for 10 working days after its publication in the Official Legal Gazette at the following link: https://sutel.go.cr/audiencias/publicas.

Interested parties may submit their comments via e-mail: [email protected]. A paper copy of the proposal may be consulted at the Sutel main offices.