Argentine companies, regulators squabble over VoIP access

A battle is brewing over rights to provision VoIP services in Argentina. Argentina's Communications Secretariat, the country's FCC equivalent, revoked a request by Cablevision (no relation to the U.S. MSO) to provide VoIP services on its network, just one week after it approved the same proposal.

The rejection came after fierce lobbying to stymie Cablevision's efforts by incumbent telcos Telefonica de Argentina and Telecom Argentina, according to the Wall Street Journal. Cablevision responded with sharp criticism of the reversal, saying stopping its VoIP plans would decrease competition in Argentina's telecommunications market.

Adding to the intrigue of the story, former Argentine president Nelson Kirchner, husband of current president Cristina Fernandez, publicly denounced Cablevision's parent company Grupo Clarin recently after anti-government articles ran in one of the conglomerate's newspapers. Kirchner is believed to be very involved in Argentina's economic matters such as this one, according to the Wall Street Journal, and it's not beyond doubt that influence was exerted in the Secretariat's reversal.

There is serious revenue at stake in VoIP services in Argentina; Signals Telecom Consulting predicted in May that the Argentine VoIP market would exceed $1 billion by 2014. 

For more:
- see the Wall Street Journal article here 

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