2017.07.2318:59:00UTC+00BRAZIL: New Telecommunications Rules Expected In 2017

The Brazilian government will enact the amendment to the telecommunications general act this year, according to Gilberto Kassab, the country's Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications minister.

The bill to amend the telecommunications act is waiting for a Senate vote that was delayed several times because of the current political crisis in Brazil and due to a previous lack of consensus on the correct voting process.

The legislation received a green light from a Senate committee in December and then headed to sanction, but president Michel Temer could not sign the bill into law because opposition lawmakers appealed to the Supreme Court to force the bill to pass a vote on the Senate floor. That vote, however, is still pending.

Kassab told journalists that he asked the Senate speaker, Eunicio Oliveira, to move forward with the vote during the first weeks of August, right after the end of the Congressional recess.

He added that the amendment fell "victim of the political crisis," but that consensus is building to send the legislation to the Senate floor and to take into account opposition lawmaker's requests.

The amendment to the telecommunications act is wrapped in controversy because a loophole allows carriers to incorporate, at no cost, buildings, fiber optics networks, antennas and other assets which are currently owned by the government.

The companies use those assets to provide their services, but they would return to government hands in 2025 - the last year of the current telecommunications concessions contracts.

Companies claim that the new legislation would release resources for investments.