By Wendy Anders

The Superintendence of Telecommunications (Sutel) postponed until the first quarter of 2017 a decision on whether market competition conditions exist in Costa Rica’s postpaid mobile telephony service, reported the superindentency’s office yesterday.

After a thorough analysis of the country’s 11 telecommunication markets, Sutel determined there is effective competition in four of these markets and no longer require the regulator’s intervention from an economic perspective.

Sutel’s board concluded that the following markets have competitive conditions: International telephony, fixed internet, international roaming and telecommunications transit (the connection of two operators through a third party’s network).

“These services will no longer have tariff regulation after the publication of this decision in the Government Gazette. The Sutel as a market regulator will continue to monitor the quality of services, protecting the rights of users and will intervene, as a sectoral competition authority, if it detects anti-competitive practices,” said Manuel Emilio Ruiz Gutierrez, chairman of Sutel’s board of directors.

The agency’s technical analysis found the there is still no effective competition in four of the other markets. The following will therefore remain under regulation: Origination (markets that enable operator preselection and special numbers), termination in individual fixed networks, termination in individual mobile networks, and fixed telephony (land lines), said Sutel.

Sutel was unable to make a final decision as to whether market competition conditions exist in the following markets: Loop unbundling services (operators that use other’s networks to provide fixed Internet), access and origination in mobile networks (markets that enable virtual mobile operators), and mobile telecommunications.

The agency said the information provided by telecom operators in these markets was not homogeneous, which prevented Sutel from analyzing it in a timely manner; thus they announced plans to postpone their decision on these markets until the first quarter of 2017.

This leaves postpaid Internet plans unchanged for the time being. The proposed Sutel changes to some telecom markets earlier this year threatened to change the way postpaid Internet plans are charged, possibly opening the door to eliminating postpaid Internet plans and offering instead per-download charges, an idea which was vehemently opposed by various sectors including human rights leaders, journalists and others concerned about the effect on plan prices, and access to information and communication among the general population that such a change would likely have, said the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría de los Habitantes).

During the public comment phase on Sutel’s latest proposal to change some telecom pricing schemes, Sutel said they received 68 comments from both individuals and institutions. All comments were analyzed, answered individually, and included in the final resolution where relevant.

The review of relevant telecommunications markets is a broad and periodic analysis of the market and does not correspond to the determination of a charging model or a tariff proposal, said Sutel.

Sutel said they will conduct this analysis at least once every 3 years.