{"id":33822,"date":"2026-06-25T15:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lacnic.net\/?p=33822"},"modified":"2026-06-25T15:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:37:32","slug":"digital-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lacnic.net\/en\/digital-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin America\u2019s Digital Infrastructure at a Turning Point"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regulations, fragmentation, connectivity, energy, and artificial intelligence were the focus of the closing session of LACNIC 45 during a panel discussion on the challenges of digital infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LACNIC 45 closed with a discussion on one of the central issues for the future of the Internet in Latin America and the Caribbean: what kind of digital infrastructure does the region need to support expanding connectivity, data demands, and new workloads associated with artificial intelligence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel titled A Turning Point for Digital Infrastructure:<\/a> Data Centers, Submarine Cables, IXPs, and ISPs<\/a> brought together four specialists with complementary perspectives: Evandro Varonil, Vice President of the LACNIC Board and representative of Brazilian ISPs through ABRINT; Giovanni King, CEO of BlueNap Americas and Chair of the Caribbean Data Centers Association; Pablo Ruidiaz, Executive Director of InteRed Panama; and Carlos Pazmi\u00f1o, Head of Submarine Cable Systems at Telconet, Ecuador. Carmen Denis, Director of Internet Exchange Service Yucat\u00e1n and member of the LACNIC Board, moderated the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmen opened the conversation with a direct question: \u201cIf you had to name a single challenge currently limiting the Internet\u2019s potential in your sector, what would it be?\u201d The responses were revealing, not only because of what the panelists said but also because of the commonalities among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Varonil did not hesitate and his answer was regulations. King pointed to fragmentation in the Caribbean, a region surrounded by undersea cables but divided into dozens of small economies that struggle to negotiate individually. Ruidiaz echoed this diagnosis for Central America, where similar fragmentation prevents the subregion\u2019s 50 million inhabitants from presenting themselves as a unified market. And Pazmi\u00f1o, who had originally intended to reply \u201cregulations,\u201d chose instead to name the second issue on his list: the inability to think collectively as a region, the \u201cus first, not our neighbor\u201d mentality that ultimately deprives everyone of infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brazilian Model<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first part of the panel focused on the case of Brazil, which accounts for more than 9,000 of the 14,000 autonomous systems registered in Latin America. According to Evandro Varonil, this is the result of more than 30 years of sustained public policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mid-1990s, the Brazilian Ministry of Communications legally separated Internet service providers from telecommunications companies. While telephone companies controlled the physical infrastructure\u2014the cables and the last mile\u2014ISPs could operate as independent legal entities without having to be telecommunications carriers. This separation, known as Rule 4, allowed thousands of small and medium-sized providers to flourish in a country of continental dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it depended on a single operator, Brazil wouldn\u2019t have the connectivity it has today,\u201d Varonil summarized. He added that, in parallel with this proliferation of ISPs, Brazil built an Internet exchange point in each of its states. These IXPs, he explained, were not only a consequence of the ecosystem but also one of its causes: without local Internet exchange points to connect to, many of those autonomous systems would not have made sense from an operational point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current challenge is that Rule 4 is in the process of being phased out and scheduled to expire in early 2027. The industry is watching with concern how a regulatory change could affect the architecture that made this ecosystem possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>IXPs: Essential Infrastructure That Often Goes Unseen <\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Internet exchange points play an essential role in ensuring that local content does not have to leave the country or region to reach nearby users. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the glamour of an undersea cable or a data center,\u201d Ruidiaz acknowledged. \u201cBut we are essential infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Panama, InteRed has achieved sustained traffic growth of more than 100% over the past seven or eight years, largely thanks to the presence of undersea cables and its ability to build an ecosystem of interconnected operators. But Ruidiaz also highlighted the limitations of this model: Panama is a relatively small country, and its growth may depend less on scale and more on efficiency, low latency, and digital sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The concept of digital sovereignty came up several times during the panel discussion. In practical terms, digital sovereignty means that when a user completes a transaction with a local bank or accesses a government service, that information should not have to leave the country to be processed. A well-connected IXP, with the right operators and participating institutions, can help keep traffic local. Without this infrastructure, dependence on international connectivity is not just a latency issue, but also a matter of control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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