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."
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.
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 =) ).
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:1, Interesting)
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 particularly like neither Fibertel as a company nor the Clarín media conglomerate, I really despise the current government/mafia. They have close ties to Chávez, and the only reason we are not to become Venezuela is because this country still has a Middle Class, despite this people attempts to destroy it.
Don't confuse yourself, this people aren't nice guys that just realised that a private company were doing something illegal. They are pushing an agenda, they don't give two shits about legality as long as they are getting their millionaire bribes.
For Spanish speaking people, this is the people currently in our government: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRaDHhJAvGQ http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1296271
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.
Re:Some thoughts from Argentina (Score:2, Interesting)
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=com_content&view=article&id=9961:government-announces-end-of-fibertel-telecommunications-services-&catid=42:politics [telam.com.ar]
Presidents come and go, but Grupo Clarín has been controlling national politics for decades from the shadow. It will be a good thing to see it go.
Re:Some thoughts from Argentina (Score:1, Interesting)
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 opponents a la Chavez.
Anyway, I'm not bothered by a business giant being brought to its knees; they'll survive, we'll survive. I'm bothered by who is doing the deed and why, and you are deluding yourself if you don't realize the Kirchners are right now attacking some of their strongest opposition in all possible fronts for their personal gain.
Just as it's good for consumers to have more choice in buying their stuff, opposition to government (regardless of who is in charge and who does the opposition) is also a good thing. More points of view are a good thing; less points of view aren't. Though a smaller Grupo Clarin open perhaps the doors to new voices, there is little doubt that those voices will have to be very careful with what they want to say if they are to be assigned a license to operate. This is very dangerous stuff, not at all what you would wish in a democracy.