Anatel reiterates goal of taking fixed telephony concession for consultation in 2022

The end of the fixed telephony concession is getting closer, but the solution that will guarantee the continuity of the provision of this service remains unknown.

The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) has already started working on the preparation of the fixed telephony concession notice to succeed the current contract, which started in January 1998 and will end in December 2025.

The president of the regulatory agency, Carlos Baigorri, reiterated this Tuesday (18) at a press conference that the public consultation should begin later this year.

The challenge, according to him, will be to find people interested in taking over a service that has fallen into disuse.

One of the most important assets and one that can attract the eyes of the market is the right to use poles and ducts for passing cables. These assets have become essential for other adjacent services, such as fiber optic broadband.

“The goal is to take the concession for public consultation this year”, confirmed Baigorri, in a conversation with journalists after a lecture at Futurecom, an event that brings together telecommunications entrepreneurs in São Paulo. “We haven’t given up on migration, I’m just not going to hang on to it, relying on it.”

In parallel with the preparation of the public notice, the possibility of fixed telephony operators changing the current service provision model is being discussed. They have the option to migrate from the concession regime to authorization, as provided for in law 13,789, passed in 2019.

With the change, companies would no longer comply with regulatory obligations, such as maintaining payphones, something that consumes hundreds of millions of reais a year. They could also keep the reversible assets permanently. In exchange, they would have to pay the amount charged for the upgrade.

Fixed telephony operators that choose to change the service provision contract will have to pay a consolidated amount of R$ 22.6 billion, according to an initial calculation by the regulatory agency.

The calculation of the migration value is being analyzed by the technical area at the Federal Audit Court (TCU), under the guidance of Minister Bruno Dantas, who is the rapporteur. The next step is to be put on trial in the court’s plenary and, if approved, return to Anatel.

There is no deadline or indication of when the process will be concluded at the TCU, according to Baigorri. He explained that, as it is a process not characterized as an initiative of privatization, there is no normative instruction that sets the deadlines for judgment by the TCU. “The process is going. The TCU has already made inquiries and requests for additional information. But when it will come out, I don’t know. You need to ask the minister there.”

At first, the telecoms would have until March 2023 to give an answer if they will choose to migrate from the fixed telephony concession regime to authorization.

But this schedule is not binding and is subject to change — which is a real chance given the uncertainty of when the final calculations by Anatel and TCU will be ready.

Once the value is defined, companies will still need time to do their math before giving an answer.

“TCU has its time and is not tied to that schedule. And that was never a binding schedule. It was always an estimate. (Whether it will change) depends on the progress in the TCU. We are still on schedule”, explained Baigorri.

During his lecture at Futurecom, the president of Anatel admitted that the imbroglio is big and uncertain.

“We are seeing a steady reduction in the STFC user base (switched fixed telephony service) and we are getting close to the end of the concessions. I have no idea how they will end.”