Nplay Southern Cone 2017 edition, organized by Grupo Convergencia, began this morning in the city of Córdoba with a debate on regulation in the OTT and convergence era. In the panel moderated by Mariana Rodríguez Zani, Director of Convergencia Research; Ariel Graizer, President of the Cámara Argentina de Internet (Cabase) (Argentine Chamber of Internet) and Alejandro Adamowicz, Director of Wholesale Business, Regulatory Affairs and Strategic Planning at Telefónica, coincided with Oscar González, Undersecretary of Regulation of the Ministry of Communications (MinCom) in that State intervention is 'adequate and necessary' when there are asymmetries, but that it should be limited to defining rules so that everyone can do business under balanced conditions. "I think we have to lower regulatory burdens and barriers; the world is open barriers and innovation. Pressure on players should be removed. We can not force them to comply with an old law, but we want to relieve pressures and lower access barriers. The State has to have a promotional role and not to establish obligations", said González. Adamowics completed the concept and considered that the world of regulation should ensure clear rules and a level playing field. "There should be sustainability but not distorted incentives", he said.

Martín Armentano, Manager of Legal Affairs at Supercanal, raised the audience applause by questioning those approaches: "I have doubts that there is room for everyone. It sounds cute, it's very good to say that there is a 'level playing field' but it's very difficult when we are sent to that field to play with the Barcelona  We can not do a Netflix because the channels do not sell us or charge us a bonus for giving service to our subscribers. I can not give mobile services because I do not have spectrum. With respect to MVNO, reference offers are still not published, so all we can not do everything".

Ariel Graizer said that nothing justifies not paying taxes to give a service in a country, but the user chooses what he wants. "If we, owners of a network, do not give access to the user, he is going to look for someone who gives it to him", he said. In addition, he warned that the Argentine cost must be lowered to give service because there is capacity for development but it is lacking the possibility for local OTT to be able to compete abroad. Graizer also questioned that Netflix has established itself in Chile but not in Argentina and that Google and Facebook did not establish their datacenters in the country either.

For González, the issue of the country's low competitiveness is not exclusive to telecommunications but it is, he considers, a very expensive country and there is a progressive increase of local content production. "It is not that we lost against other countries because they are better, but we are more expensive", he assured and said that there was a substitution of services. Adamowicz, for his part, insisted that there should be no barriers that inhibit innovation and considered that substitution does exist, that they are the millennials, who do not have cable.

Towards the closing of the panel, the public questioned the role of the Commission of Competition Defense, and González assured that Government is "establishing the commission with very professional and capable people, I have no doubt that they will take action in these questions of content. We want a law that gives much more power to Defense of Competition".