Argentine Government Orders Major ISP To Close 152
Doctor Jonas writes "Argentine ISP Fibertel has been barred from continuing operations because of the dissolution of their status as a company after they were absorbed by Cablevisión of Argentina, now part of media conglomerate Grupo Clarín. The Minister of Planning, Julio de Vido, announced the measure, and said it was Grupo Clarín's own doing by having shut down the Fibertel company and turning it into a commercial brand, and that ISP licenses are not transferable after acquisitions from one company to the other. The Argentine opposition said the move was another attack on Grupo Clarín's standing and another part of the feud between them and President Cristina Fernández and her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner. Cablevisión has promised to go to the courts to overturn the decision, and the opposition seeks to protect Fibertel's continuing operations through a bill in Congress. More than a million households and businesses would need to change ISPs in merely 90 days, possibly strengthening the internet provisioning dominance of both Telefónica (subsidiary of the Spanish Telefonica) and Telecom."
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Brazil is a country.
Argentina is a different country.
For some of us, this apparently is an exciting development.
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Where did I see Brazil?
In your own subject line. And 'high' up in the title of the post to which you replied. OMG
Brazil is a movie (Score:2)
Somewhere in the 20th century.
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Not the same thing.
For Brazilians hot women are an essential part of their national identity. There's a reason why Brazil is famous for the women at the carnival in Rio.
So what? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm one of the affected million and I will have to change ISPs. Fibertel used to throttle youtube all the time, but apart from that the service was good, if a little expensive. They are part of a huge news-controlling monopoly, broke the law, and they got what they deserve. There are many choices of broadband internet over here, so I basically don't give a sh*t.
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There are many choices of broadband internet over here, so I basically don't give a sh*t.
Good for the people affected.
But it still doesn't seem like a smart move to piss off more than a million voters just to fuel a feud between two politicians.
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And you are OK with that? You are OK with the government deciding who can and cannot be an ISP?
This may come as a bit of a surprise, but government isn't treated as "them" everywhere in the world. In some places we consider government to be an extension of "us". And yes, I do like ISP's and other companies that control infrastructure vital to the well-being of my country to be accountable to "us".
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And you are OK with that? You are OK with the government deciding who can and cannot be an ISP?
This may come as a bit of a surprise, but government isn't treated as "them" everywhere in the world. In some places we consider government to be an extension of "us". And yes, I do like ISP's and other companies that control infrastructure vital to the well-being of my country to be accountable to "us".
That works fine until you are in the minority on some subject, then you have empowered the government to silence your opinion. See companies are already accountable to "us", if I don't like the behavior of a particular company, I don't do business with them.
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So, what's the deal with the 1st lady (do you call them that there?) becoming president?
I thought the various kennedies and then Bush and Bush Jr were bad enough, but a husband and wife switching off as president? Do you have term limits? Because it sounds like a really transparent way to get around a presidential term limit.
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Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
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There is a similar thing in Afganistan - the US set things up to favor women running for office, as a means to correct the extreme gender inequality of the country. It didn't take long for an exploit to be found: Women officially run, but on the openly known grounds that they are to defer to their husband in all matters and have their name on the ballot only for legal reasons.
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Grupo Clarín owns the national major newspaper, and seems to control the 2nd major one. It owns TV channels in every town and city, and in many cities is the only cable operator. It controls the only newspaper paper plant in Argentina and uses prices to undermine other newspapers.
As I explained in another comment, this is really about the government trying to stop a new merger, because Clarin had acquired the 2nd largest cable company in Argentina. The govt rejected the merger, but Clarín went ahead and dissolved the company, creating for itself an illegal situation (because the ISP license belonged to the old comany, which is now dissolved).
We are here in very interesting times regarding the role of journalism, and the fight agains media giants...
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Yes, weird. Still, it's better for the people what they are doing now, not what they did before. The Multicanal-Cablevision merger is (was?) obviously a disaster for us consumers.
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Man, you should see a doctor... =)
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The stupidity, selfishness and sheer short sightedness of the Argentinian governing elite is just mind blowing.
I'm from Uruguay. In times like
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I used to have Fibertel. It was complete shit. Even worse than Comcast is in the USA. They have bad, spotty and throttled service in some areas, but they are the only cablemodem provider in Argentina.
Nonetheless, this is yet another move in the continuing struggle between the current government and grupo Clarín. (http://www.argentinepost.com/2009/09/with-help-from-clarin-kirchner-rises-from-the-ashes.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/13/kirchner-and-clarin-argen_n_285105.html)
Even when I don't
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Grupo Clarin's reach is so large that they control most of the public thinking, and many times helped coups or to overthrow presidents that didn't get along well with them. They used to be in a good relationship with the current government until a few years ago, when something mysterious happened and they became enemies (it's not certain what happened, but most likely that the government blocked them access to entering them into telephony, by favoring other companies, so they couldn't expand their monopoly). As a result, every single day the largest newspapers, TV channels, etc attack the government in any way they can, fabricating negative scenarios, taking government claims out of context, etc, reducing significantly the positive image of the president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The government, in exchange, started passing several anti-monopoly laws to break Grupo Clarin, revoking their licenses, taking their grants for soccer broadcasting away, as well as prosecuting them for the crimes they committed during dictatorship.
As a personal view, I feel my fellow argentinians are too blinded by the two-way hate, and too worried about taking sides, that don't realize this mutual destruction between the media monopoly and the current government (one of the most corrupt governments in our history) is probably very beneficial for the country, as it's like killing two birds with one stone..
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That's basically the role of the intellectual left in Latin America.
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The debate over whether or not they broke law is misleading, because they broke a law that requires you to get permission from the government to provide internet access. Why would I have to do that? I don't want my government to get involved with me and my internet provider. What good have they done with that "power" anyway? (other than force them to shut down apparently). The "license to provide internet" shouldn't have to exist, so far it's only been a tool for the government to control them for their own
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Good luck with getting a new provider during the following 3 months.
Delays are bad enough when they _don't_ have 1000000 people to absorb.
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Please tell me who exactly broke which law? The ISP is not getting closed because of any law-breaking, it is more like the goverment used a tecnicality to close it just because they wanted to. I like to get my news from the Clarin group, I don't see it a as news-controlling monopoly because there are other sources, I just trust Clarin more than the other sources (like Govermennt oficial news). There are some places where there were only 2 ISPs so closing one will lead to a monopoly, how come you don't gi
Wrong URL (Score:4, Informative)
The URL is not Fibertel.com. Is fibertel.com.ar
Faco (Score:3, Interesting)
"More than a million households and businesses would need to change ISPs in merely 90 days"
Technically, yes. In reality, not quite. Since Grupo Clarin will sue for its rights, the shut down of the company won't happen until all the trials are finished. Since justice takes a long time in Argentina, it will be some months before the users have to switch ISPs, and there is the chance that the trials carry on way past october 2011, when the next president is elected, so the decision may be overturned before it actually takes effect.
Still, there is a lot of misinformation on this story around here, so some people still believe the company is already shutting down, which is draining their customer base. Also, until the justice rules on the case, Fibertel won't be able to sell its service to new customers, to the advantage of other ISPs.
I myself have been using Fibertel for the past 5 years and had no complaint so far. Still, they do belong to Grupo Clarin, which is a huge monopoly around here, so the decision is not all that ilogical.
it kind of makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
in north america, cablevision are the victimizers
but in south america, cablevisión are the victimized
it has to do with everything in reverse in the antipodes: summer is winter, night is day, good is bad, and i believe gravity works in reverse down there
You know what that means... (Score:2, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, Major ISP closes YOU!
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in north america, cablevision are the victimizers
...
it has to do with everything in reverse in the antipodes: ...
I suddenly have this fierce hope that Lucca and Marle cast Antipode [icybrian.com] on the Dolans [cablevision.com].
This is really about antimonopoly measures (Score:5, Interesting)
This is part of the intention by the government to stop the merger of the two biggest cable providers. The merger has already been done, despite it being rejected ( http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/10918 [buenosairesherald.com] ). The new merged company dissolved one of the parts, without getting the license to operate under the new company. So, now they are operating under a license belonging to a company which no longer exists.
The issue here is government vs media giants. Antimonopoly measures, which are common in developed countries, have a lot more opposition in non-developed countries, where economic interests go over the people's interest (yes, more than in the US =) ).
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This is not an antimonopoly measure.
It's favoring one monopoly over another.
I live in Argentina (Score:5, Interesting)
So, allow me to provide a little bit more information on this subject.
Our current government has that schizophrenic touch that Bush had. Their policy is the same that Bush had: Helping their corporate friends, pushing an agenda.
Clarin is the largest spanish newspaper in the world. That includes all of Latin America + Spain. The Clarin Group, the holding behind the newspaper, also owns several other newspapers, several TV channels, publishing companies, and a lot of other companies in media and communications. It's one of the largest companies in South America, and it has huge worldwide influences.
They have been in a fight for market penetration and control of the media with Telefonica for 2 decades. Our former President Nestor Kirchner, Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations and husband of our current president, had overwhelming support from Clarin, they actually helped him to achieve the presidency. Later, their relationships got a lot more tense when Nestor Kirchner did a few deals with Telefonica. Eventually, Clarin had withdrawn thoverhwellmingeir support, and had became his number one public enemy.
Now, Nestor's wife (Cristina) is our president. Just like him, she's a fucking cunt, with a lot of personal interests that she has no moral issues pushing all the time, and a lot of friends to help out. Just like bush, they had interests in Oil companies, and in several big industries, and also in real estate. Pushing their own business is their only interest.
So, this is just a move to pressure the Clarin group. This is a way to silence the bad publicity they've been getting from Clarin lately. It's a douchebag move.
The worst thing about this is, Fibertel was owned by Cablevision. Later, with the approval of Nestor Kirchner, Clarin, through one of their subsidiaries (Multicanal: The Argentinian Comcast) bought Cablevision and therefore Fibertel. Now the government claims that data transmission licenses are nontransferable, and that therefore Fibertel is operating illegally. Also, Clarin owns almost 300 different licenses from several companies they have acquired throughout the years. That is highly irregular, and the government is using that as an excuse too.
The worst thing here is that there are not many alternatives in here where it comes to Internet access.
In Buenos Aires (Argentina's Capital City) and nearby cities (Metropolitan Area) there are several providers, such as iplan, fibertel, telefonica, telecom, telmex, telecentro, and others. In the rest of the country, the options are much more limited. There is surely one DSL provider (Either Telefonica's Speedy or Telecom's Arnet, and in most places there is also a cablemodem provider (Fibertel), a Wimax provider (Telmex), and some small local services, usually cooperatives or small wireless companies. And that's all. Telefonica sucks big time, both technically and commercially, and Fibertel is the only decent alternative, both technically and economically.
You can get a decent 3MB cablemodem from Fibertel for ~40 dollars (160 pesos).
Of course, Fibertel is not going to die. They are either going to appeal and win (or at least delay this for years to come), or sell the whole infrastructure to someone. Anyway, this is just the government reminding us that it can fuck with us whenever it wants.
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Sorry to reply to myself, but I forgot about something:
The link in the article is wrong. Fibertel's webpage is fibertel.com.ar. Right now, when you enter the homepage, there is a clickthrough message before reaching the index that says they are going to continue providing their service, and that they are doing everything they can (legally) to continue providing their service.
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So, if I understand you correctly... the Kirchners help corporate friends, and group Clarín is a good and big company that Argentinians should be proud of. Yet, in help of "their corporate friends", the Kirchner are pushing antimonopolic laws.
This is the kind of schizofrenia created by media monopolies on weak minds... =)
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Instead, they're more susceptible to Hugo Chavez's brainwashing.
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The Kirchners were glad to help Grupo Clarín build their monopoly as long as Grupo Clarín supported the Kirchner family political plans.
Now that Grupo Clarín has adopted an opposition editorial policy the Kirchners are trying to break up the monopol
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Our current government has that schizophrenic touch that Bush had. Their policy is the same that Bush had: Helping their corporate friends, pushing an agenda
This is common for every single government over the face of the planet Earth. If you want to be critic with a government, this is one of the most irrelevant topics to discuss.
It's one of the largest companies in South America, and it has huge worldwide influences.
This is true, but they exert most of their influence here, by controlling public opinion. They are so strong in the country that they ultimately decide who gets to be president, and who gets the boot treatment.
Just like him, she's a fucking cunt, with a lot of personal interests that she has no moral issues pushing all the time, and a lot of friends to help out.
Congratulations you have just described a politician. This is the kind of
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"Clarin is the largest spanish newspaper in the world. That includes all of Latin America + Spain." [CITATION NEEDED]
"It's one of the largest companies in South America, and it has huge worldwide influences." [CITATION NEEDED]
Argentine self-aggrandizing is world-renowned so could you please back these up?
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What's the need for offensive comments about other countries people? The kind of comments that are often the signature of a moron. Next time try to keep on the subject, without spitting insults and prejudice.
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You seem to be too much concentrated in hating the Kirchners to see anything clear, aren't you? Get over it...
Grupo Clarin is a monopoly, using it's many newspapers and tv channels it manipulates the news at a large scale to push the interests of the (few) tradicional "owners" of the country in detriment of everyone else. And not only that off course, many of it's bussiness practices, current and prior, are much less than pristine. The sooner they are divided in smaller companies the better for Argentina as
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I do think that there should be a way to keep the company going because Telecom and Telefónica aren't much better and competition is alw
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Speedy silently passes all web traffic through a transparent proxy. The service is absolutely unstable.
Fibertel sucks in many ways, but it's still better than the alternatives.
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Yes, of course, that doesn't mean that Noble isn't a piece of crap, and that she's not doing all of this for political reasons too.
But I like to analyse this from another POV:
The state should always act within the law. When the state shows that it can act outside the law, and do what they please with anyone, company or individual, there is no more state, just another mercenary.
HERE IN ARG (Score:1)
Argentina's government is becoming Venezuela.
Some thoughts from Argentina (Score:1, Informative)
A bit of extra info from another argentinian. Don't expect to be enlightened though, since the situation is basically a gigantic clusterfuck with no easily discernible good or bad guys.
Grupo Clarín is Argentina's largest media conglomerate. It doesn't have a monopoly in anything because there is lots of competition, but it is the 500-pound gorilla in all the areas it competes in and in most of the markets it invests in. The largest newspaper (Clarín), one of the biggest tv networks, one of the lar
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Not neutral. The new law is not “setting things up so that the Government alone chooses who gets a license and who doesn't”, that's propaganda. The new law is just an anti-monopoly law.
Besides, you have your facts wrong. They haven't been operating illegally for several years. Fibertel was "dissolved" on Jan 15th, and the government has been warning the company for some time now. What happened now is not surprise for anyone but the uninformed.
Source: http://english.telam.com.ar/index.php?option= [telam.com.ar]
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To call the law "just" an anti-monopoly law is either very naive or propaganda itself. You are getting your info from the Government alone; you would do well to listen to the other side as well if you want even a chance of neutrality here. I'm not saying Grupo Clarin isn't a bunch of dicks, but it isn't at all clear to me that they are even doing anything illegal in this case even if you aren't bothered by the fact that the new law just oh so happens to make it easier for the government to shut down its opp
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It really shows you don't know much about the new Argentine media law. Before the law, licenses were assigned by a government official, directly appointed by the president. Now, there is a commission, with some control by the opposition, and a formal public competition.
You can read more about the media law in this site: (Spanish) http://www.leydemedios.com.ar/ [leydemedios.com.ar]
(Of course, this Fibertel is not related with the media law)
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the situation is basically a gigantic clusterfuck with no easily discernible good or bad guys.
Oh, I think it is pretty easy to identify bad guys. It seems pretty clear to me that in this case the government is among the bad guys. The only question is whether or not Grupo Clarin is also among the bad guys. Additionally from the various comments by other Argentinians, it seems obvious that there are no good guys in this case, the best Grupo Clarin can hope to be is "not one of the bad guys" in this particular case.
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I do think the goverment is the "good guy" in this... (despite thinking this move wasn't smart, legitimate: yes, but not smart) What is your basis to say otherwise?
Here is like if there were only Fox News in the US... Terrible!
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Here is like if there were only Fox News in the US... Terrible!
So, you appear to be saying that Grupo Clarin is the only news source that gives you the information that the current administration doesn't want you to know, why is that bad?
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Nobody is left without options! (Score:1)
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Good, Clarin is a monopoly (Score:2)
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: [wikipedia.org]
In short ... (Score:1)
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
Can anybody or the editors explain the relevance to "my rights online" of this story,
Politics can have effects on all of us, even if we don't care about politics.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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the idea that a government can just hand-wave and shutdown a major ISP is somewhat unsettling. Even though this doesn't affect me personally, I would still consider this a "rights" issue - as in the right to choose one's ISP, without the government interfering and saying who can and who can't be an ISP.
This is "the" point in this issue, Fibertel has ceased to exist in 2009, they merged with another company, which voided their license. They even admitted it and put it in a report when they wanted founding on London (Spanish only, sorry http://bit.ly/9V1bOf [bit.ly]).
The government did not shut down an ISP, they pointed a company which was doing business without a valid license and forced them to stop doing it.
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without the government interfering and saying who can and who can't be an ISP.
Why should the government be interfering? Do they say who can and can't sell chocolate bars? How about pour cement?
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Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Informative)
There are slashdot readers in most of the world. And yes, the world IS not the usa. And by the way, just so you know, telefónica IS part of the third largest financial group in the world. Welcome to earth, usaian
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Earth... is that some new state we annexed?
Sir, given the current state of international politics, you truly honour your nickname, don't you ?
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He's just playing a character: the ignorant American. I'm from a country south of the border and I'm not the least bit offended by him. I actually thought it was funny. Lighten up!
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Wooosh... (And same for the mods who modded GP troll).
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Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not interested, just jump to the next news. No need to be an ass.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Well - it doesn't say "Your rights online IN AMERICA", does it? It looks to me that some country is diddling around with their citizens rights to get online with the company of their choice. Rights. Online. OK, maybe it has little to do with YOUR rights, but then, who the hell are YOU?
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Actually, South America is the original America.
When Amerigo Vespucci explored the coast of Brazil in the early 1500s the data he brought back to Europe was used by a cartographer [wikipedia.org] to draw a map where the land was named America in his honor. The naming of North America came later.
In conclusion, and at the risk of being moderated "flamebait", I must say that to me a citizen of North America calling himself an American is more or less like a citizen of West Vir
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about "rights" because one of the corporations involved, Grupo Clarín, is a media company that has an editorial policy that opposes the current government of Argentina.
It's not a business decision, it's a political decision, and a frightening one.
It is a legal decision (Score:2)
Now, if the claims that the Kirchner's were friendly to Clarin when they got support from them, is another history, but, if communications licenses are not legally transferable like some argentinians posters say, this is more a problem of stupid management than anything else.
Certainly, if Clarin group whasn't one of the main supporters of the murderous Argentina's dictators of the 1970's their claims of freedom of the press would hold more wather and not be simple posturing.
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1.000.000 suscriptors plus their families.
Progressives vs. Socialists (Score:2)
I'd say Socialists are a proper subset of Progressives.
Progressives tend to be not just in favor of progress towards a better world, but in favor of government policies that will make a world they consider better.
There are two ways to give the government power to enact such policies: government ownership (Socialism) and government regulation. Socialism has a bad rap these days, so people who seek to make the government stronger tend to work for more regulation, such as the recent healthcare reform.
However,