[wsfii-discuss] Pre-alert situation in Argentina, please help & advice

[Ramon Roca]

Sorry for cross-posting, and in English for a wider audience.

Last friday, colleagues from a community wireless which is cooperating 
with us in a small village in Argentina got a visit from representatives 
of the CNC (Comisión Nacional de las Comunicaciones). Seems that the 
inspection was caused by a claim from Telecom, a local mobile operator 
affiliated to Movistar (Telefonica), arguing that was interfering to 
their backbone links.

The inspected nodes are actually composed by low cost wifi routers, 
working al 2.4 band, using the Argentinian regulatory domain, which is 
region 2 of the UIT (same as in the US), with a power between 50mW and 
100mW and serving Internet to a primary school, and some families in a 
low-income neighborhood.

Our colleagues are very much concerned because of the lack of 
regulations in Argentina. Looks like those CNC officials will come back 
next Thursday asking for shutting down the nodes, or even confiscation 
of the equipment. Although wifi equipment has been widely extended in 
Argentina, the concern is that looks like there are some old regulations 
which require discretionary legalization for any radio equipment, and 
CNC can invoke those regulations for this purpose.

That's why IMHO we are facing a pre-alert situation in Argentina that 
requires to stay tuned on how evolves.

My first impression is that this kind of equipment and and this band is 
very unlikely the cause for any disturbance for mobile operators, 
therefore my first advice to them has been to cooperate with the 
authorities for any technical assessments on site related to the 
spectrum analysis, with the hope that the story will finish here.

But in the meantime and just in case:

 1. Please stay tuned in what happens next Thursday. In case of the
    network being forced for shutdown or being confiscated, we plan to
    release a press note reporting those facts, which we believe that
    might be a serious injury of fundamental rights from citizens from
    governments and large-corporations, so we will ask for you
    cooperation disseminating though blogs and social networks worldwide.
 2. Does anybody know from a local legal contact from Argentina who may
    assist this wireless community? If someone has a contact, please let
    me know.
 3. Any other advice/idea?

Thanks,
Ramon.

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