In the industry it is believed that this year there will be no Convergent law, although yesterday the minister Oscar Aguad admitted that the norm will possibly enter the Senate after the elections. There are divergences between the optimists who expect the legislation to come to Congress this year or the next and the pessimists, who understand that with DNU 257/15 and decree 1340/16, the new legal status quo of ICT has already been constituted and that the law will remain in limbo. Concerns are, on the other hand, about the progress of regulations, gaps in the new regulation, or the multiplicity of interlocutors between authorities.

The Convergent Law Commission finalized its work in March and the Ministry of Communications (Mincom) convened a new round of consultations to review the project. However, it will not be made available to the public and only those actors who participated in the first stage will be considered.

Restrictions also apply to query mechanisms. They will hardly be allowed to see "by subject" fragments of the law as each actor competes. Moreover, none of the companies consulted had been invited to participate in this second phase nor had received a corresponding "fragment of the law" to give their opinion.

The slow progress of the law generates disparate reactions, although they ask for greater predictability that the norm would give. In general terms, for large companies, this demand is rather formal and is in accordance with the "pro-market" seal of Macri. There is a lot of criticism and suspicion that several measures tend to favor Grupo Clarín’s position to the detriment of the rest, especially telephone companies.

Audiovisual

These claims are accentuated in the case of medium and small players, especially among cable operators, who argue that without law it is more reckless to invest in a legal context marked by two laws patched by two decrees that present contradictions. It is not clear for cable operators whether they can be considered as ICT operators, as interpreted by DNU 267/15, or if they continue having audiovisual service obligations, according to the 1340/16 reading.

However, for most SME cable operators, the judicialization is not, at the moment, the way to resolve these claims. At the beginning of May, it was speculated that the precautionary measure of the federal court that stopped the possibility that telcos give pay TV services in some localities of the province of Mendoza, followed other demands of companies in the courts. The measure, which benefits Cable Televisora ??Color, halted the validity of 1340/16 in the towns of Mendoza, San Juan, Tunuyán, San Carlos and Malargüe.

In contrast, another federal court, that of Venado Tuerto, rejected a similar request for a precautionary measure filed by an SME from Rosario. And in Enacom officials believe that the appeal presented has enough technical elements to revoke the injunction.

Likewise, SMEs also believe that the law will not arrive, and prefer to direct the demands towards other initiatives, such as asking for more incentives to make FTTH, such as soft loans, beyond Universal Service projects and the recently announced National Broadband Plan.

Two members of the drafting committee ujhkkagreed that the main points of conflict surrounding the future law relate to the audiovisual sector. Among them, the status of cable operators as ICT operators, as envisaged in the project and affects taxes that audiovisual media operators contribute to various funds, such as the National Institute of Film and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA). Lawmakers dismissed future conflicts and promised that "the law will improve and much funding will go into development."

Regulations

Telcos assume the policy of fait accompli and accept that the government advances in different regulations, with the nod that they are in tune with the future law, which will be integrated. Even though they to have more opinion on the issue. They understand that it went from one end to the other, from the participatory and politicized audiences for the media law during the Kirchnerism to the pantomime of opinion by twitter promoted by the Macrism.

Of the expected regulations, the most worrisome is that of spectrum, precisely because it is not yet in public consultation and there is no news of it. This regulation was expected since August last year, when the existence of a joint working group between the Ministry of Communications and Enacom was announced. However, the task was left in the hands of the regulator.

Precisely, the disagreements between both agencies disrupt the companies. Enacom’s role in the definition of policies for the sector is also worrisome because it conflicts with the idea of ??better regulatory practices promoted by the UIT on the independence of regulators and having a single authority for the sector. Some criticize that Miguel De Godoy, president of Enacom, talks and defines issues more with Marcos Peña, head of Cabinet, than with Oscar Aguad, minister of Communications. But deep down it is something that does not really worry any company.

The views of Enacom lawyers are more focused on issues related to the new digital economy and the regulation of "post convergence", as the amendments to the law of Personal Data, in force since 2000, which requires contemplating situations such as those raised by social networks or hosting state data in the cloud. Or that of Technological Intermediaries, requested by the operators to disconnect from commercial disputes of third parties, which has an half a sanction of the Senate.

There is also suspicion of the failure of the contravencional justice  of the City of Buenos Aires that blocked the Uber website. Regardless of the controversy over whether or not the application complies with urban transport regulations, there is concern about the decision of a local judge to attribute a prerogative that had hitherto been exclusive to federal jurisdictions (and which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights limits itself to exceptional cases such as child pornography or the defense of terrorism).

In this regard, apart from the many debates on freedom of expression, the Uber case reactivated the discussion on a regulation for net neutrality that completes and complements the Argentine Digital law and takes into account new factors, such as the dynamics of the mobile market.

At this point, officials and companies have points of agreement. The Peruvian regulation, which came into force in January this year, appears as the north to where to aim. The Peruvian regulation is aligned with the European criteria and among its main features includes operators who do not directly provide the Internet access service, but through their networks passes the Internet access traffic of third-party operators. In that sense, streaming services or peer to peer - in which some Internet resources are excluded or - social networks – in which also include part - are also subject to proposed obligations.