Colombia's CRC says Claro's remedies for the Azteca fibre deal fall short

Colombia's CRC says Claro's remedies for the Azteca fibre deal fall short

20 October 2026: Colombia's Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) has told the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) that the commitments Comcel, Claro's Colombian operator, has offered to win approval for its integration with Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia (ACC) do not rule out the competition risks the regulator identified. ACC's fibre network carries the wholesale services of more than 250 operators, and on 778 of its 874 routes Comcel would become the only fibre provider.

Not yet independently verified. We have read the CRC's summary of its opinion, not the technical opinion itself or the commitments Comcel filed, and neither the SIC nor Comcel has said when a decision is due. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

A network the rest of the market rents

The deal would bring Comcel about 32,000 kilometres of fibre reaching 893 municipalities, eight in ten of the country's total, much of it built under the National Fibre Optic Project. The CRC says almost nine in ten of the network's routes have no other fibre provider, and on another 33 the only alternative is Comcel's own network. Its territorial analysis finds 582 municipalities where a single provider would be left in the transport network and 104 more with limited supply.

That matters to every internet provider, mobile operator and enterprise carrier that buys backhaul over ACC's routes to reach towns outside the big cities, because Comcel competes with them in fixed internet and mobile services.

Five objections to the commitments

The CRC's opinion, sent on 20 October as a complementary technical concept, makes five points about the remedies as drafted. Some only repeat obligations that already apply under the National Fibre Optic Project and the RAN and mobile virtual operator rules. Three years of commitments do not remove a risk that lasts as long as the owner of the network competes with its users. Compliance cannot rest on certificates from the operator itself. Open-ended phrases such as "commercially reasonable conditions" set no standard that can be enforced. And a 30-month network stabilisation plan must not become a period of exemption from quality, continuity and non-discrimination duties.

Felipe Augusto Díaz Suaza, the CRC's executive director, put it in one line: "Prometer acceso no es garantizarlo" (promising access is not guaranteeing it). He added that a competitor can lose without the door being closed, through a less favourable route, a later expansion or a repair that comes last.

What the regulator wants the SIC to require

If the SIC approves the integration, the CRC recommends conditions that preserve existing capacity, routes, availability, service levels, repair times, prices and discounts; that cover both the national fibre project network and ACC's own network; and that guarantee equal treatment between Comcel and its rivals in feasibility studies, provisioning, expansion, maintenance, repair and restoration. It wants that compared route by route with verifiable data, including latency, packet loss, rejection rates and documented reasons, alongside a published wholesale offer, protection of competitors' commercial information, independent audits and no automatic expiry.

The decision belongs to the SIC alone, and the award of the National Fibre Optic contract is a separate decision of the Fondo Único TIC. Our ranking of companies in Colombia covers 64 firms in two categories, advertising (34) and app development (30), many of which run services that depend on connectivity outside Bogotá.

Sources

• CRC: La integración puede preservar la red, pero el acceso debe ser efectivo: advertencia de la CRC sobre COMCEL-Azteca (in Spanish), 20 October 2026