Non-automatic licenses: the importation of fiber optics for internet networks could be affected and complaints are already arising

 This week the Government added several elements to Non-Automatic Import Licenses (LNA). Resolution 26/2022 updated the list of products that require a government authorization to enter the country and, among them, incorporated fiber optics, a sensitive input to improve connectivity in the country: it is used for the networks that constitute the laying Internet providers, and in recent years it is even used for the last link to the subscriber's home or office. 

With this new provision, to import these products, those who request it will need a government authorization. If they achieve approval, they would access the foreign exchange market, but only after 180 days. In the meantime, they will need to secure financing to pay the provider. This instance, as it happened with other industries, could imply an additional cost to the final price.

For the Government, after consulting LA NACION, the decision "has to do with ordering and improving the predictability of companies." “Far from harming them, it orders them, it is not something that is going to complicate them. 

There is something linked to the LNA as if it works as a punishment, when it is not the point. What the measure tries to do is order all import processes”, they pointed out from the Secretary of Commerce, whose head is Matías Tombolini.

In the Official Gazette, the Government justified the measure insofar as "the implementation of an Import Licensing System (...) makes it possible to identify disruptive behavior in foreign trade, it is a key tool for managing foreign trade policy with a view to to national productive development and in accordance with the current context of international trade relations”. 

And it adds that "a series of goods have been identified for which, based on the current economic situation, it is essential to evaluate their respective trade flows."

LA NACION also spoke with members of the industry, who were surprised by the news. "We will have to see how much it complicates us and what level of stock we have to have for the time it takes to manage each of these things," replied, cautious, an industry benchmark. “We didn't know they were going to put this on. 

We did not have a specific confirmation,” explained another, who added: “We are asking for meetings with officials to explain the situation the industry is experiencing, and so that they know that infrastructure is needed for the knowledge industry to develop. 

We need the flow to continue to guarantee the best infrastructure. Before that process was automatic”, he argues. And he concludes: "90 percent of the inputs for infrastructure are imported."

Currently, according to the National Communications Entity, there are two million end users with fiber optics, surpassing the conventional copper pair. Fiber optic connections reached one million users in 2020; added 500,000 new users in a year and a half, and the same in six months, to reach 2 million by the end of 2021, the latest data available.

Enrique Carrier, telecommunications specialist, explains the essentials of this input. “This change in fiber has a greater impact than if it had happened 8 years ago, because there was a growth in the deployment of fiber to the home. Until a few years ago it was used at a wholesale level or to connect cities, but today what you have is that it reaches your home. 

The measure may have an impact on this technological update promoted by companies that came from copper -as is the case of Telefónica or Claro- and the same happens in the interior", analyzes Carrier: "you have providers that started and now were putting fiber, even those of pay TV, for example Cablevisión, which it did not have and now all new installations are made with fiber. The impact of this measure, if it is very restrictive in terms of availability, can be very important”.