Argentina (country telecoms regulation overview)

Argentina boasts one of the highest mobile and broadband penetration rates in South & Central America. As a member country of Mercosur (regional trade association in South & Central America), Argentina is required to abide by its telecoms policy. Due to the measures adopted by country’s telecoms regulator, the National Communications Commission (CNC), Argentina’s telecoms market has become highly liberalized over the past 14 years.

Some of the significant liberalization measures include the “unique license” regime and the deregulation of the retail and wholesale markets. Under the unique license regime, telecoms licenses are issued on a service- and technology-neutral basis to drive higher competition among the existing operators. On the other hand, the CNC has been striving to remove regulatory hurdles by deregulating mobile retail services and encouraging operators to freely negotiate wholesale service terms with each other. It has put the necessary curbs in place to ensure fair practices. All such measures are now resulting in healthy competition.