Peru. Operating companies that provide services in Lima, Callao and nine other regions of the country will have the possibility of including, within their offer, the pay television service, individually or packaged.
This will encourage greater competition in the market, as well as a greater number of alternatives that fit the preferences and budgets of users, announced the Supervisory Body for Private Investment in Telecommunications, Osiptel.
This scenario will be specified after an exhaustive analysis of the cable television market carried out by the regulatory entity, in which it was determined that Telefónica del Perú has a dominant position in the provision of pay television service.
In response to this, The Resolution of the Board of Directors No. 00098-2021-CD/OSIPTEL, published in the legal standards supplement of the Official Gazette El Peruano, was issued, which declares the aforementioned company as an important provider of pay television in the regions of Lima, Callao, Áncash, Junín, Ica, La Libertad, Moquegua, Cusco, Lambayeque, Tacna and Arequipa.
The provisions oblige Telefónica del Perú to grant access and shared use of the telecommunications infrastructure it uses to provide its pay-TV service. In addition, to offer other suppliers the commercialization or resale of said service and to inform OSIPTEL about the conditions and discounts applied in the agreements signed by this matter. These special obligations are intended to promote competition.
It is expected that the measure will have a positive impact both for users, by expanding the market offer and the available alternatives, and for the competition, since it would encourage improvements in the conditions of provision of cable television, the quality in the attention of the service and new strategies of approach to the user.
About the Important Supplier
The figure of the important supplier is not exclusive to the Peruvian market. Since 2012, different wholesale markets have been analyzed in our country to determine if there is a company in them with the capacity to affect, in a significant way, the conditions of participation (in prices and supply) of the respective market. Thus, in addition to the cable television service, it was determined that in the wholesale internet access market and data transmission (fixed Internet), there is also a major provider.
The obligations are established by Legislative Decree No. 1019, "Law on Access to Infrastructure of Major Providers of Public Telecommunications Services", a framework that allows OSIPTEL to determine the existence of such providers.
For those markets where the existence of a major supplier is determined, every three years an analysis of the respective market will be made again to identify if the conditions that determined its presence are maintained.
