As the end of 2025 approaches, the telecommunications industry in Latin America leaves us with a landscape in which several hopes remain alive, as they were not fulfilled in the last twelve months. It could be said that they are part of an annual exercise aimed at addressing illnesses diagnosed more than three decades ago, but, for some reason, the various facets of connectivity, training, and innovation are not easy to integrate into public policy.
For this reason, it is important to outline which elements should be addressed in the coming years to ensure that technology truly catalyzes economic development, rather than a recurring promise in PowerPoint presentations.
Since the digital divide was first identified and the recipe to remedy it was given, decades have passed, and the problem continues to multiply like a wet Gremlin. The era of simply providing coverage is over. Now, the focus is on affordability so that people can access the technologies available in the places where they live and work. However, the asymmetry in deployments, along with delays in the availability of new 5G cell phones, increases market differences, as the device determines which technology the user can access.
Continuing with the digital divide, some decision-makers believe that it is closed if 100% of the population lives in an area where some terrestrial telecommunications network offers retail services. In other words, a mirage is created that limits the existence of the digital divide to rural regions, low-population-density zones, or simply those far from cities. Although a higher percentage of the rural population indeed lives in conditions of poverty or extreme poverty, this should not overlook the fact that 82% of the Latin American population lives in cities.
The reality is clear: according to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), whether measured by income or multidimensional poverty, the largest proportion of people in poverty and extreme poverty is found in urban areas. In other words, a large part of those in the digital divide live in zones where all or almost all public services offered by the State are available, with adequate civil infrastructure and multiple telecommunications operators.
Governments must understand that the digital divide cannot be solved by the presence of one or a thousand operators in a locality. It is a more complex issue, where some people do not want to connect because they do not perceive value in the telecommunications network, but the vast majority of people who wish to have the service and cannot have it do so due to money issues, not because of the availability of the service in their locality.
The telecommunications sector does not operate independently of the rest of the country’s economy, and its operations depend on advances made by other government portfolios in road, energy, and educational infrastructure, among others. Likewise, economic issues ranging from taxes to the export of profits play a fundamental role in the levels of innovation and the expansion of coverage across the various operators.
Even state operators must adhere to financial laws when establishing a business model, if they do not wish to become a burden on the state by operating as a deficit company that consumes public revenues, thereby reducing funds that can be allocated to sectors such as education, security, or health.
Therefore, modernizing existing telecommunications infrastructure is a key priority. Those countries that have taken the time to develop a national digital transformation strategy emphasize the need for telecommunications operators operating in their territory to invest in new technologies. However, without the necessary enablers that incentivize investment, the fulfillment of digitalization desires will be closer to being achieved by rubbing a lamp like Aladdin’s than by the market operators investing.
Although some governments pretend to forget it, telecommunications companies’ objective is to be profitable and generate revenue from the services they provide. To achieve this, the first thing they must do is generate a return on the investment they have already made, while exploring new business models to continue growing revenue. Beyond jingoistic statements claiming private companies’ obligation to invest, the reality is that each company will invest according to the business model it chooses. That model will differ from operator to operator and from market to market.
Even with brakes on investment, taxes due to absurd policies such as the onerous price of spectrum concessions in Mexico, obstacles to the expatriation of income in Venezuela, and, until a few years ago, the old taxes and other barriers to the arrival of devices in Ecuador or Argentina, the growth observed in the telecommunications offer at the regional level has been surprising. While in the last two decades of the 20th century, there were waiting lists for a telephone line and almost non-existent rural telecommunications infrastructure, in many of the region’s countries, currently inefficient national operators and obsolete technology are observed.
However, memory is short, and from time to time, decision-makers in public policy land in the sector who could easily pass as disciples of Jorge Manrique in any literature faculty, as their dormant souls seem to preach that all past times were better. Ergo, they spend their time proclaiming the need and urgency of having state operators. The problem is not the existence or non-existence of companies with public capital, as seen with Antel in Uruguay, but the idea that if the company is state-owned, it is obligated to offer services below cost to users.
Even in this area, an evolution has been seen; at one point, a state mobile operator was desired, like the stillborn Libre.Ar, then the fashion emulates Mexico’s shared network across the region, with the closest being the emergence of Internet for All in Peru, but differing in not having its own spectrum concession. Lately, what is seen in the government plans of regional candidates is a return to the idea of launching national satellites. An idea that, at the time, propelled Venezuela, emulated by Bolivia and later by Ecuador, although the life of its Pegaso satellite was counted in weeks after being struck by space debris.
Currently, if the promises of the current government are fulfilled, Colombia would supposedly expand its space agency to launch its own satellite, a promise made alongside pledges for a national cybersecurity center and even a university in the red zone of Catatumbo, in the department of Norte de Santander. Likewise, the country would become a key hub for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in Latin America.
From these promises, several issues must be addressed, and all administrations should give them follow-up. The first is cybersecurity, especially in a fully IP world where the number of connections will only increase exponentially in the coming years and become more sophisticated. On the other hand, the AI issue must continue to be developed and integrated into digital transformation strategies, and it should constitute a new point of study in the country’s academic institutions.
After the work done in Colombia with the publication in 2025 of its National Artificial Intelligence Plan (CONPES 4144), it must be given the necessary importance and follow-up so that the work continues and does not happen the same as what was observed with the famous regulatory sandboxes that, after starring in government figures’ presentations for several years, suddenly disappeared from the discussion, hopefully not from practice. Hence, the announcements made by the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) in April and May 2025 offer reasons for hope.
In any case, the effort was not diluted because thanks to this dissemination task by the Colombian government, there has been a proliferation of regulatory sandboxes throughout the region at the hands of INDOTEL in the Dominican Republic, ANATEL in Brazil, and the joint work of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism along with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation in Chile with the launch of a sandbox focused on AI.
And the Colombian satellite? If it is to offer coverage and telecommunications services, the country does not need it. Quite the opposite: satellite capacity is increasing across the region, leading to lower prices for consumers. Once low-Earth-orbit fleets like Amazon’s LEO or AST SpaceMobile begin offering commercial services, satellite broadband prices are expected to continue to drop.
At least in Brazil, in the next 12 to 18 months, thanks to an agreement with Telebras, the entry of the Chinese operator SpaceSail is expected, which will undoubtedly create competitive pressure in the market, forcing other satellite platforms to be more aggressive in their pricing strategy for consumers but also forcing broadband providers with terrestrial networks to continue investing to have a more attractive solution for their customers through fiber optics.
In terms of technologies, the region must think about a 2026 where the population coverage of 5G networks continues to expand, submarine and terrestrial cables connecting the various markets in the area are increased and replaced, advances are seen in D2D services, the offer of services by low-orbit satellite fleets expands, data storage points increase, and the development of applications and products that take advantage of new technologies is promoted.
The role of academic institutions in the adoption and use of new technologies must not be separated. Any public policy aimed at digital transformation or the promotion of AI must involve schools, universities, and educational institutions to be effective. From curricular modifications to teacher training, as part of a holistic modernization strategy through digital technologies.
Of course, no national telecommunications policy can be successful if the favorable conditions for its deployment do not exist, which depends on the work of the people who build the infrastructure. If the country’s security conditions are not favorable, whether due to kidnappings, placement of explosive devices, or armed attacks, among others, then it will be difficult to meet the government’s objectives. Issues such as drug trafficking and guerrilla movements become a major impediment to digital development, especially in those areas that most need investment in infrastructure.
Finally, while consolidations of operators will continue in the region, the levels of digital modernization will depend on the regulatory changes implemented to update the region’s legal frameworks and eliminate artificial obstacles to the use of technology. To implement changes harmoniously, it is necessary to consult the various actors in the telecommunications sector to understand and identify their main concerns and priorities. This dialogue must be continuous, respectful, and constructive; pretending to listen or conduct consultations only to ignore then the sector’s claims is counterproductive and only produces distrust and discomfort.
If these changes do not begin to occur in the region, we will continue attending telecommunications conferences to hear descriptions of Latin American reality worthy of novels by H. G. Wells or Asimov, as the area seems plagued by flying cars, communication through holograms, and artificial intelligence systems that attend to all our desires.
Telecommunications conferences in Latin America afford the luxury of surpassing Atlantis, Krypton, and Wakanda in technology and development. We just lack the superheroes.
