Colombia. At the closing of the 21st National Congress of Public Services, ICT and TV, organized by Andesco, Colombian President Iván Duque said that thanks to the rule "we are going to close the great technological gaps" and added that "we will have 70% of the country, by 2022, with broadband coverage."
He insisted that he prefers "that this law be built on the free deliberation of ideas and not with the steamrollers oiled with the public treasury, because that is the true construction of democracy."
He stressed that this rule will allow to give the municipalities that are part of the Development Plans with Territorial Focus (PDET) "100% coverage, which also means a great social transformation."
President Iván Duque said Friday that the ICT Modernization Law was presented to Congress because it is a norm that "allowed regulatory convergence, but – at the same time – gives clear signals of investment, more than 20 years, so that investment arrives and digitally transforms our country."
At the closing of the 21st National Congress of Public Services, ICT and TV, organized by the National Association of Public Services and Communications Companies (Andesco), the Head of State insisted that the issue that today concerns the country is connectivity.
"The country, for years, had been demanding a regulatory improvement, where we eliminated regulatory tangles, because today's world needs intelligent regulation," he said, stressing that it was not possible to continue with "those guidelines of the past, where we wanted legislation to be hindering the arrival of new technological tools."
He explained that this panorama motivated the presentation of the project, together with the Minister of ICT, Sylvia Constaín, to the Congress of the Republic.
The president said he does not believe that the path to the approval of the initiative has been difficult, to the extent that "it was an enriching battle, because we cannot escape the debate on politics."
President Duque noted that it is a rule that "gives transparency to those who want to invest in the long term" and commented that "it is, in addition, clear about the independent development of the contents; today we have a law that wants Colombia to become a country that reaches 5G starting in 2022, because it is from that arrival of 5G that the maximum potential of the Internet of Things or Artificial Intelligence really materializes, and many other technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, " Expressed.
Additionally, he stressed that this rule will allow to give the municipalities that are part of the Development Plans with Territorial Focus (PDET) "100% coverage, which also means a great social transformation."
In the same way, the Head of State referred to the complementary elements brought by the ICT Law, of which he said "it does not come alone, it is accompanied by measures that are also generators of enthusiasm in the investment community."
He said that "we will have, in a few weeks, the auction of 700 megahertz so that, in that way, we can also have the presence in the high bands and the low bands, and that this allows us to guarantee a provision of excellent service."
Finally, he said that he has "spoken with several of the leaders of the private sector in the telecommunications sector and I can tell you today that Colombia has taken a historic step."
