Panama to Mandate Tower Sharing by Phone Networks

Panama's telecoms regulator, the Autoridad de Servicios Publicos (ASEP) has issued a direction to tower owners that they must now start sharing their infrastructure with other operators to cut down on the number of telecoms towers being installed in the country.

The authority also said that if companies cannot come to a commercial agreement to share a tower, then it would reserve the right to impose a decision on the companies.

Any towers planned before the decree was issued will be allowed to proceed unchanged. However, municipal authorities will not be required to start following the new directive as soon as it becomes law - a delay which will doubtless lead to a surge in planning applications from the tower operators to beat the deadline.

There are currently two mobile operators in Panama, Cable and Wireless plus Telefonica. According to figures from the Mobile World database, the country ended Q1 '08 with an estimated 2.7 million subscribers - representing a population penetration level of nearly 83%.

Digicel was awarded a license earlier this year to become the 3rd mobile network in the countryl.

Posted to the site on 4th November 2008