They approve tougher fines for operators with millions of dollars: what is this regulation admitted by Congress about?

The Plenary of Congress approved last Thursday, June 22, with a large majority, the replacement text of the Bill 2151, which seeks to prevent the risk of illegal use of personal data and the illegal sale of mobile equipment and telephony chips. What is established by this rule of law rank is to raise the fines to the operating companies that commit some type of infraction.

According to the new scale of sanctions, now a minor offense will entail a maximum fine of 100 UIT (S/495,000), while the fine considered serious will have a maximum of 500 UIT (S/2 million 475,000). In that same line, the category penalty very serious will generate a fine of maximum 1,000 UIT (S/4 million 950,000).

On this point, the executive president of Osiptel, Rafael Muente, indicated that this higher scale of sanctions should serve so that the operating companies do not commit violations and therefore offer better services. Furthermore, he claims that the penalty fee is less than the benefit that companies would obtain by committing a mistake.

“With higher sanctions, they do not seek to fine more, what is sought is to correct the behavior of companies so that they comply with the rules and provide a quality service to users, the service they really deserve,” said the official.

More than two decades ago they did not update the scale of fines

According to Osiptel, the scale of fines was established by law more than 20 years ago, so currently it does not respond to the evolution of the telecommunications market. In the face of criticism, the president of said organization pointed out that the increase in sanctions does not affect the expansion of service coverage.

“If one considers the amounts of fines imposed from 1996 to 2022, these have only represented 0.09% of the amount of operating income of companies in the sector registered in said period. In other words, the income of the companies has not been affected by the fines, nor have their investment plans,” emphasized Muente.

However, this measure has received criticism from the Association for the Promotion of National Infrastructure (RELATED), of which the operators are members, above all, because the norm goes against the expansion of the coverage of services of telecommunicationsmainly in more remote places.

“An increase in fines of up to 300% would generate the diversion of resources so that about 5,700 rural populated centers have access to 4G,” they said.

In addition, this union questions what was approved since Osiptel has imposed fines well above the rest of the regulators in the country and the region: more than S/103 million in sanctions, compared to S/46 million for Osinergmin and S/10 million. of Ositrán (to 2021).

Disobedience of the operators translated into S / 25 million in fines

One of the practices that companies have violated the most has been the sale of chips on public roads, a fact that is prohibited by Osiptel regulations. From 2020 to March 2023 alone, said body imposed fines of more than S/25 million on mobile service operating companies for violations related to inspections of the outpatient marketing of chips mobile.

Of this large penalty, the largest amount corresponds to telephone, with S/7.59 million (30%); follows him Clear, with S/6.27 million (25%); Entel, with S/6.09 million (24%); and bitel, with S/5.40 million (21%).

Given the permanent disobedience of the operators, Congress approved this Thursday, June 24, to raise this prohibition to the rank of law. In this way, comprehensive protection is provided to citizens with the cessation of the ambulatory sale of mobile chips and a severe penalty for those responsible.

With respect to this issue, a struggle has been unleashed in advance between some operators since telephone (Movistar) filed a complaint against its competitors Claro, Entel and Bitel alleging the alleged commission of acts of unfair competition after selling chips on public roads, a fact that has an impact on the final score of their sales.

Said claim motivated Osiptel impose a precautionary measure against the aforementioned companies. These operators, according to the complaint, engaged in conduct contrary to the requirements of the good business faith.

Operators: what are the prohibited activities?

Now, there are two points that are incorporated in literals d) and e) to paragraph 8.2 of article 8 of the Legislative Decree 1338. Established these modifications, it turns out that operating companies are prevented from doing the following:

• Market or hire mobile public services on public roads, as well as in places that do not have a specific address reported to Osiptel, with some exceptions.
• Market or contract public mobile telecommunications services without biometric fingerprint verification of the seller nor have the biometric verification of the fingerprint of the person who acquires said services as a contracting party.