What comes after the Net Neutrality?
Chile has had a net neutrality law since the beginning of this year. This law helps to protect our right to access the internet without any discrimination. We’re the first country in the world to have this kind of regulation and it will help Chile to attract new business and other opportunities. Now that this new law has been passed, we are left with the question: What next?
Internet service providers in Chile need to reduce their prices so more people can access the Internet. This country has one of the highest access costs in the OCDE [1]. Introducing new regulations may increase the competitiveness of the market and decrease prices. However, providers need to increment their hardware in order to offer more bandwidth and new services to their users.
Nevertheless the government should subsidize the infrastructure, especially the last mile, in order to improve the quality of the internet connections available. In the urban areas the cable companies compete with telephone providers, who still use ADSL as transmission technology. This means their clients will be limited to 10 Mbps at most. In order to prepare the country for the next twenty decades, the bandwidth will need to be increased dramatically to support the new media contents and applications.
Chile has the opportunity to lead the Internet development in Latin America. A competitive market and better infrastructure will enable our citizens to access new knowledge and foster innovation.