LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN

To see a brief summary of a country's WiFi rules in the box below, put your mouse inside the country's borders on the map at left. For more detailed information about radio regulation in a particular country, click on the country in the map. Use the "Country pages" selector in the left column for places not visible in the map (e.g. Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, etc.).

Regional

• "Documentos completos con la regulación sobre el manejo del Espectro Radioeléctrico en América Latina y el Caribe," (Complete documentation on radio spectrum management in Latin America and the Caribbean) compiled by Hernán Galperin and Bruce Girard in 2005. Published on WILAC.net by the Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (Dialogo Regional sobre Sociedad de la Informacion, DIRSI), November 2005.
• Comisión Interamericana de Telecomunicaciones (CITEL) - the Interamerican Telecommunications Commission - 35 countries are members. Useful services on their website include the "Americas Information Sharing Network (Red de Intercambio de Información de las Américas) - which provides access to the output of standards organisations in the Americas - and the Regional Database on Spectrum Use (Base de datos sobre utilización del espectro). While the Database is still being tested, as now, it is open to the public. Select a frequency range, service type, and a country or countries, and it will generate a table reporting current regulations for using the band. See also the webpage for the CITEL Sub Working Group on Wireless Access Systems (WAS) in the 5 GHz Band.
• Barómetro Cisco de Banda Larga [Cisco's Broadband Barometer] - country-by-country overviews of broadband penetration in Latin America in 2006 (in Spanish, but with lots of charts and numerical tables so language is hardly a barrier).
• Asociación Iberoamericana de Derecho de la Información y de la Comunicación Informe sobre el estado de los Derechos de la Información y de la Comunicación en Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, España, México, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay y Venezuela (Ibero-American Association for Information and Communication Rights presents a Report on the State of Information and Communication Rights in [the 12 listed countries]), Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 273 pages in Spanish, 2004.
• "Perspectiva de las Politicas Publicas Regulatorias en Telecomunicaciones de la Tecnologia Wi-Fi en Latinoamerica y su Marco Regulatorio" por Miguel Zuñiga (Noviembre 2003); (Perspective on the Public Policies of Telecommunication Regulators Concerning Wi-Fi Technology in Latin America and its Regulatory Framework" by Miguel Zuñiga [November 2003] - in Spanish).
• "Wireless Networks and Rural Development: Opportunities for Latin America," by Hernan Galperin, Information Technologies and International Development, Volume 2, Number 3 (Spring 2005), pages 47-56: "This paper argues that the new generation of WLAN technologies can significantly alleviate the constraints that limit Internet connectivity in Latin America to the wealthy, urbanized areas. Yet for this potential to be realized governments must rethink current assumptions about spectrum management and universal service policies."
• "Analysis of the Regulatory Position of Caribbean Telecommunications Union Member States," Caribbean Telecom Union, 2002. (Extensive overview but does not mention radio license exemption or WLANs...)
• The Economic Advantage of Wireless Infrastructure for Development by Adithya Raghunathan, Sustainable Development Department Technical Paper ICT-102, Inter-American Development Bank (April 2005).
• "The benefits of license-exempt spectrum: point-to-point, point-to-multipoint or mesh?" by David Sumi, Telecommunications Americas, June, 2004.
• "Wi-Fi: ¿Alternativa para la Inclusion Digital?" (Wi-Fi: An Alternative for Digital Inclusion?) - drafted in Spanish by the participants in an Institute for Connectivity in the Americas Web Forum, November-December 2003. "El documento consta de tres partes: Análisis FODA sobre el Wi-Fi; experiencias de Wi-Fi en países de América Latina y el Caribe; propuestas de estrategias para la optimización de su uso."
• "Randy Zadra, Managing Director of [the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas = ICA] explains that, 'in the next five years, E-Link Americas, a not-for-profit corporation supported by ICA, the World Bank, and CIDA, intends to connect 10,000 rural and remote sites throughout the Americas.'" ---from "EION is Chosen by the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas to Deploy Thirty Wireless Networks in Latin America" (press release, 7 January 2005)
• Frecuencia Online - English/Spanish/Portuguese-language portal about mobile/wireless networks in Latin America. Includes free downloadable PDF versions of the monthly magazine Frecuencia Latinoamerica in Spanish and Portuguese, and the weekly English-language newsletter FrecuenciaFlash.
• Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación al Servicio de la Competitividad y la Integración Sudamericana - Plan de Acción, by Peter Stern, Claudia de Francisco, Martha Rodríguez, Carlos Forero, Francisco J. Proenza, y Juan Belt; Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Diciembre 2003 (483 pages in Spanish, executive summary also in English).
• "RFID Heats Up in Latin America," by Mark Roberti, RFID Journal, 28 May 2007: "The cover story for the next issue of RFID Journal magazine will delve much more deeply into RFID adoption in Latin America, exploring how companies doing business there can benefit from the technology. From my admittedly brief visit, I got the sense a lot of people understand the benefits and are ready to take advantage of RFID..."