Bogotá’s 32nd Court for the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures (Juzgado 32 de Ejecución de Penas y Medidas de Seguridad de Bogotá) ruled that Cepeda, along with Holmer Pérez Balmaceda of the Catatumbo Farmers’ Association (Ascamcat) and Clímaco Carmelo Landazuri Preciado of the Corporación Étnica Ambiental del Pacífico Sostenible (Capacs), had not shown a current violation of their rights or irreparable harm attributable to MinTIC or Inravisión. The court found the stations had not been shut down and their frequencies had continued operating.

“Inravisión has not issued any administrative act or directive aimed at suppressing, closing or eliminating the Peace Radio Stations, canceling their frequencies or permanently ending their operation.”

— Bogotá’s 32nd Court for the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures

The dispute traces to August 17, 2026, when Inravisión — the name the public broadcasting system readopted earlier this year after two decades as RTVC — instructed the directors of the 20 stations by WhatsApp message to halt their regular programming, according to reporting by El Armadillo. The order also reached 11 decentralized stations in the Radio Nacional de Colombia network, covering more than 70 frequencies in total. Since then, the affected signals have carried only music from Bogotá in place of locally produced news, culture and community programming. One of the 20, in Ituango, Antioquia, was among the first two Peace Radio Stations to go on air, in 2019, alongside a sister station in Chaparral, Tolima, and is the only one of the network’s stations in Antioquia department, according to Las2orillas.

Cepeda, who lost the presidency to Abelardo de la Espriella in the June 21 runoff, announced on August 21 that he would sue, writing on X that the suspension “disregards that these stations were created under Section 6.5 of the Final Peace Agreement and the duty of state authorities to comply in good faith with what was agreed,” according to El País (Cali). The Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP), the Misión de Observación Electoral and the Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias (AMARC) all publicly rejected the suspension, and separately argued it affected more than 463,000 listeners, mostly in rural, Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and peasant communities.

The Peace Radio Stations were created under the 2016 accord between the Colombian government and the demobilized FARC guerrilla group to produce content on peacebuilding and the accord’s implementation in municipalities hit hardest by the armed conflict; roughly 90 percent of their programming has consisted of locally produced content rather than national feeds, according to Inravisión staff cited by Infobae Colombia. The network had previously been cited as the one commitment of the 2016 accord to reach full implementation.

The suspension followed the August 7 inauguration of de la Espriella and the August 12 appointment of Ángela María Mora as Inravisión’s new manager. On August 16, MinTIC issued a statement declaring the end of what it called “the propaganda apparatus in Colombia’s Public Media System,” announcing an “immediate action plan” with Minister Alexandra Falla to overhaul programming, review contracting and eliminate the news and opinion slots across the system’s radio and television offerings, according to Semana. Mora and Falla said the review covers more than 1,051 contracts worth over $100 billion COP signed in 2026, including roughly $7,255 million COP in advertising, planning and digital-content services under separate scrutiny, according to Las2orillas. Findings are set to go to Colombia’s Inspector General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la Nación) and Comptroller General’s Office (Contraloría General de la República). The former Inravisión manager, Hollman Morris, had faced a Procuraduría disciplinary investigation opened in June over allegations that the outlet was used to favor the previous Petro government’s political agenda. Senator Enrique Gómez, of the Salvación Nacional movement that backed de la Espriella’s campaign, said on August 21 that the stations were “the official megaphones of the FARC for indoctrinating regions” and a “nest of propaganda,” a characterization FLIP rejected, warning that stigmatizing the stations’ journalists could increase their risk of attack, per Las2orillas.

In its ruling, the court also rejected the censorship claim, finding the programming change applied uniformly across all 20 stations without singling out particular content, programs or people, and that the plaintiffs had not specified what information had gone unreported or what concrete impact the centralization had caused. On the stations’ role under the peace accord, the court acknowledged they serve as “an instrument intended for pedagogy and reconciliation in territories affected by the conflict” but found the shutdown did not rise to an actual, current violation of the right to peace, since the infrastructure, frequencies and underlying contracts had all remained in force. The government has described the change as a temporary programming scheme adopted while a review and reorganization of the schedule is carried out, rather than a final decision to end the service.

Although it denied the tutela, the court urged Inravisión — without making it binding — to define and publish a timetable for reactivating the stations’ local news programming. Cepeda has said he will appeal the ruling to a higher court, according to Cablenoticias. Colombia’s Congress has already taken up the underlying dispute: Representative Alejandro Toro, of the opposition Pacto Histórico, filed a control-hearing request, joined by 18 other representatives, to question Falla and Mora over the decision.

Headline photo: Illuminated signage on the Inravisión — Sistema de Medios Públicos headquarters in Bogotá.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on August 10, 2026, with an epicenter about 20 kilometers from San José del Palmar in the department of Chocó, according to the United States Geological Survey. As of August 25, Colombia’s Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit, UNGRD) counted 331 dead, 4,439 injured and 240 people still missing, with 16 departments and 494 municipalities affected.

Ookla, the company behind the Speedtest and Downdetector network-monitoring platforms, has published an analysis of how Colombia’s mobile networks behaved in the hours and days that followed. Combining Speedtest data, background signal-scanning telemetry and Downdetector’s outage reports with the USGS ShakeMap seismic model, Ookla found that network failures tracked the intensity of the shaking closely, but that the worst of the damage did not arrive during the earthquake itself. It arrived hours later, and in Chocó, more than a day later, as backup batteries at cell sites ran down faster than utility crews could restore electricity.

Outages tracked the shaking, then kept getting worse

Service availability held roughly steady in zones that experienced shaking below 6 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale, a measure of shaking severity rather than the earthquake’s magnitude, and began deteriorating rapidly above that threshold. In areas that registered MMI 8, severe enough to cause substantial structural damage, 22% of mobile devices lost service in the hours that followed, compared with a normal baseline of about 2%. Ookla’s modeling found that ground-motion intensity accounted for 45% of the variation in service loss, with distance from the epicenter explaining another 34%.

The worst point did not come until four and a half hours after the main shock, when 27% of devices in the most intensely shaken zone were without service. In Chocó, where the earthquake originated beneath San José del Palmar, the share of devices without service kept climbing for a full additional day, reaching 42%.

Devices without mobile service kept climbing for hours after the shaking stopped, peaking at 42% in Chocó a day later. (Chart: Finance Colombia)

Power, more than the shaking itself, decided who stayed connected

Colombia’s electrical grid absorbed the earthquake’s second-order damage. Chocó lost essentially all of its electricity supply, while the coffee-growing Eje Cafetero region lost about 80% of demand and Valle del Cauca about 70%, according to Ookla’s analysis of data from grid operator XM. Colombia’s Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies, MinTIC) separately counted 3,403 base stations out of service, equivalent to 46% of those it evaluated across seven departments; in Risaralda, the figure reached 77%. XM reported that 86% of electricity demand had been restored by the afternoon of the day after the quake, and mobile-network recovery tracked the pace of that grid restoration closely.

Downdetector registered an anomaly in consumer-submitted problem reports just 34 minutes after the rupture. But reports per million residents were roughly 18 times lower in severely shaken zones than in moderately shaken ones, an inversion Ookla attributes to a simple constraint: residents in the hardest-hit areas needed working connectivity to file a report in the first place.

Chocó lost its entire electricity supply, while the Eje Cafetero and Valle del Cauca lost about 80% and 70% of demand. (Chart: Finance Colombia)

Redundancy mattered more than any single site surviving

Claro reported the largest share of downed sites among the four national networks in the hardest-hit areas, roughly one in five, yet held its peak share of users without service to 10%, the lowest of the three operators for which Ookla reported that figure. Movistar recorded the highest peak user unavailability, at 16%, while Tigo reached 13%. Sites that stayed on the air served a wider area than usual and carried signal roughly 3 decibels weaker on average as a result. Devices on the network then marketed as WOM connected to competitors’ networks at a rate that rose from 8% to 13% of its host-network traffic, and observations of Movistar devices roaming onto Tigo’s network more than quadrupled. Ookla did not report a peak user-unavailability figure for WOM itself.

Claro held peak user unavailability to 10%, the lowest of the three operators Ookla measured, despite losing the most sites. (Chart: Finance Colombia)

The roaming shift also reflects a change in market structure that was already in place by the time of the earthquake: two of the four networks Ookla compared were, as of the earthquake, sister brands under a single owner. Millicom International Cellular (Nasdaq: TIGO) completed its purchase of Empresas Públicas de Medellín‘s 50% stake in Tigo-UNE in January for $571 million USD, then closed its purchase of a 67.5% controlling stake in Movistar’s Colombian unit, Colombia Telecomunicaciones, from Telefónica (BME: TEF) the following month for $214 million USD. Millicom completed a second purchase in April, buying the Colombian government’s remaining 32.5% stake in Colombia Telecomunicaciones for approximately $237 million USD to become its sole owner. Claro is operated by América Móvil (NYSE: AMX; BMV: AMX A). The operator Ookla and contemporaneous Colombian press referred to simply as WOM has since been ordered by Colombia’s Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, SIC) to stop using that brand amid a trademark dispute with its former Chilean licensor, WOM SpA, and now operates as Partners Telecom Colombia.

Demand surged onto a diminished network

Restoring a site to service did not mean restoring its performance. In the hardest-hit departments, latency under load rose from 633 milliseconds to 903 milliseconds and packet loss doubled even as the share of devices without service was falling, a sign that reconnecting users loaded a network that was still running on reduced capacity. In Valle del Cauca, median mobile download speed fell to 8.24 Mbps on the afternoon of the earthquake, compared with 28.99 Mbps on comparable Mondays. Speedtest activity itself fell by about a third on the first day, then more than doubled its normal level on the second day as more users regained enough connectivity to test their own service.

Latency and download speeds worsened in the hardest-hit departments even as more devices reconnected. (Chart: Finance Colombia)

Satellite was the fastest redundancy layer to arrive

In the most affected zones, legacy 2G and 3G connections’ share of cellular activity more than doubled as devices fell back to older networks, and the share of fixed-network speed tests carried over satellite nearly tripled on the day of the earthquake. Starlink offered free satellite internet service in five affected departments — Chocó, Caldas, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda and Quindío — within 30 hours of the earthquake. Ookla recorded roughly a 40% increase in Starlink utilization, with median download speed rising from 86.83 Mbps to 96.81 Mbps despite the additional demand.

Starlink’s free service in five departments saw usage rise about 40% while median speeds also improved. (Chart: Finance Colombia)

Ookla noted that Colombia had no direct-to-cell satellite network available during the emergency; the only device-to-satellite signals it detected came from Entel’s service operating across the border in Peru. Chile, by contrast, has offered a commercial direct-to-cell service between Entel and Starlink since November 2025, letting compatible phones connect straight to satellites without a dedicated terminal when terrestrial coverage fails.

Bogotá’s response, and the gap Ookla says remains

Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies activated a Sectoral Contingency Plan within days of the earthquake, ordering telecommunications operators under Circular 0028 to keep networks available to emergency authorities at no cost, making calls to the 123 emergency line free even for users without an active balance, and granting the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (Communications Regulation Commission) temporary power to require operators to share surviving infrastructure. The ministry also said it was evaluating a temporary allocation of spectrum for direct-to-device satellite connectivity. “Connectivity can save lives in the places affected by the emergency,” the ministry said in announcing the measures, as reported by Semana.

Ookla’s own conclusion points at a gap that policy has not yet closed: Colombia currently has no minimum backup-power requirement for network sites, a category of rule that resilience research, including work by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, identifies as central to keeping networks alive through an extended electrical failure. Chile offers a comparison of what such a rule looks like once regulators write it down. After a nationwide blackout in February 2025 exposed the same vulnerability, Chile’s telecommunications regulator, the Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones (Undersecretariat of Telecommunications, Subtel), published a decree in January 2026 raising the mandatory battery-backup requirement for critical cell sites from four hours to six. Chile had already learned a version of this lesson once before: after the country’s 2010 Maule earthquake, researchers found that only about 2% of the base stations that eventually failed had been damaged directly by the shaking, while most failed later, as backup batteries ran out. Claro and Tigo reported having restored more than 90% of their earthquake-damaged infrastructure in Chocó, Valle del Cauca and the Eje Cafetero by August 14, but Ookla’s data suggest the next earthquake will pose the same question this one did: how long the batteries last after the lights go out.

Ookla and Downdetector have been under joint ownership since June, when technology and consulting firm Accenture (NYSE: ACN) completed a $1.2 billion USD acquisition of the connectivity division of Ziff Davis (Nasdaq: ZD), which had previously owned both platforms.

Colombia’s Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, or MinTIC) will create a specialized working group to monitor what social media platforms are doing to detect and remove content that criminal structures use to recruit minors, the ministry announced on August 28, 2026. The group will meet weekly to check whether the platforms and other digital-industry actors are meeting the commitments they have made.

Minister Alexandra Falla Zerrate made the announcement after meeting with representatives of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Internet (Latin American Internet Association, or Alai), a Montevideo-based industry association whose members include Meta (NASDAQ: META), TikTok, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), X and MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI). According to the ministry, the meeting examined the growth of the problem and the way criminal structures use digital platforms to approach children and adolescents.

The announcement came four days after Human Rights Watch published a 124-page report on the recruitment of minors by armed groups in Colombia. Based on its analysis of data from the Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman’s Office), the organization counted at least 1,500 children and adolescents recruited since 2021, with a sharp rise in cases since 2023, and found that dissident factions of the demobilized FARC were behind the large majority of reported cases, and that more than half of all reported cases were in the department of Cauca. The report’s researchers reviewed more than 70 accounts and 40 posts on platforms including Facebook and TikTok that glorified membership in armed groups or invited users to join them, and concluded that the platforms had not effectively detected or removed that content and that in some cases their algorithms appeared to promote it.

“Armed groups in Colombia are recruiting children with impunity, as protection systems are failing, and social media platforms have become a more effective recruiting ground,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, when the report was released.

Separately, the Defensoría del Pueblo registered 97 cases of forced recruitment of minors between January 1 and July 31, 2026, according to El Espectador, after 684 cases in all of 2024 and 428 in 2025. The agency cautioned that the lower reported figure does not necessarily mean recruitment has fallen, since many victims and families do not report out of fear, distrust of institutions or normalization of the violence.

Five measures

The ministry listed five measures coming out of the meeting. The first is the working group itself, which will provide permanent follow-up on the actions taken by platforms and other ecosystem actors and verify compliance with the commitments made to prevent recruitment.

The second concerns detection technology. Participants discussed the role of artificial intelligence in identifying and filtering recruitment-related content and concluded that, while automated tools catch and remove a significant share of posts, they must be complemented by interdisciplinary human review to catch material that slips past the filters. Falla urged the digital-industry participants to build teams of people who understand Colombian forms of communication, whether visual, verbal or written, so that they can recognize this type of messaging and act on it immediately.

The third measure is a push to stop the content from being published in the first place rather than removing it after the fact. Falla said she was concerned about the circulation of content that can be used to lure or induce minors into recruitment and called for technological tools, including properly programmed detection algorithms, that identify and block such posts before they go up.

The fourth addresses the share of content that evades detection. Raúl Echeberría, Alai’s executive director, told the meeting that platforms currently remove more than 90% of the identified content related to the problem. Falla responded that the challenge is to keep cutting the percentage that gets past detection mechanisms and to reach 100% neutralization of that content.

The fifth measure is coordination. The ministry and the industry representatives agreed that confronting the online recruitment of minors requires joint action by the authorities, the technology platforms, other digital-ecosystem actors and families.

What the platforms have said

In written responses to Human Rights Watch that were published as annexes to the report, both Meta and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, said their policies prohibit content that promotes, supports or champions violent organizations, including Colombian armed groups, and that they had removed the profiles the organization flagged. According to El Tiempo, Meta reported removing 16 Facebook profiles and TikTok reported removing 35 profiles and their associated content. TikTok also told the organization that between January and March 2026 it removed 99.4% of content in Colombia that violated its policy on violent organizations and individuals before it was reported, that it blocks search terms associated with criminal organizations, and that users under 16 cannot access direct messages or group chats where those features are available.

Human Rights Watch’s own conclusion was that the platforms have not been able to effectively detect and prevent the spread of this content. According to El Tiempo, the full report recommends that the platforms establish specific reporting channels adapted to children in Spanish and in relevant indigenous languages, preserve evidence when content is removed, and publicly report on their compliance with child-safety obligations under international standards and Colombian law.

Falla, a social communications graduate of the Universidad Externado de Colombia with more than three decades in the audiovisual and public television sector, took office with the administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella, which was inaugurated on August 7, 2026. The ministry said that for Falla the protection of minors is a priority issue. The announcement did not specify who will sit on the working group or whether the platforms’ commitments will be made public.

Headline photo: Minister Alexandra Falla Zerrate with representatives of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Internet and the digital industry at the ministry. (Photo courtesy MinTIC)

Colombia’s technology minister, Alexandra Falla Zerrate, swore in three senior officials on August 13, 2026, giving the Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies), or MinTIC, a full leadership bench six days after President Abelardo De la Espriella took office.

MinTIC reported in May 2026 that rural household internet access had reached 56.9%, passing half for the first time, and that the gain had left the urban-rural gap at around 20 percentage points. The ministry presented those figures to a team of economists from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a session led by then Vice Minister of Connectivity Gloria Patricia Perdomo — the post one of the new appointees now takes over.

That post goes to Camilo Carrascal Vergel, an electronics engineer. Germán Enrique Bacca Medina takes the Vice Ministry of Digital Transformation, and Magda Yolima Amaya Arévalo becomes secretary general, according to the ministry, which supplied the biographical details that follow.

Carrascal Vergel brings more than 20 years across connectivity, regulation, infrastructure, digital inclusion, digital television, information security, data and innovation, and has worked in the public sector on initiatives to widen digital infrastructure and access to communications services in Colombia. Bacca Medina is a lawyer specializing in financial and securities law, with postgraduate study in communications law and in competition and competition economics, and has held posts at the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (Superintendency of Industry and Commerce) and the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (Communications Regulation Commission), alongside work in the private sector and in academia.

Amaya Arévalo takes the Secretariat General. She is a lawyer with a specialization in administrative law and a master’s degree in public management. She has more than 15 years of experience in public management and the handling of public funds. She previously served at the Agencia Nacional del Espectro (National Spectrum Agency) as deputy director for institutional support, with responsibility for administrative and financial processes and for authorizing expenditure.

Amaya Arévalo resigned three days into the job. President De la Espriella publicly instructed Falla on August 15 to review the ministry’s recent appointments and verify appointees’ backgrounds; a ministry document accepting Amaya Arévalo’s resignation effective that date was reported by La República. Semana reported that the appointment had come under scrutiny after it emerged that Amaya Arévalo had worked at the Fondo de Financiamiento de la Infraestructura Educativa (Fund for Financing Educational Infrastructure), or FFIE, an entity tied to the Ministry of Education under the previous government of Gustavo Petro. MinTIC’s organizational chart lists Germán Enrique Bacca Medina, the vice minister of digital transformation, as acting secretary general.

The mandate

MinTIC has named connectivity, artificial intelligence, innovation and the strengthening of public media as the four axes of its agenda, describing them as a technological transformation meant to generate social and economic development, lift productivity and reduce the country’s digital divides.

Those sit inside a longer set of objectives De la Espriella set for the portfolio: a digital sovereignty strategy built on national technological capacity, continued expansion of connectivity into rural and remote areas, and adoption of artificial intelligence to raise productivity and competitiveness. The remainder cover more interoperable state digital services, digital skills training, a secure and resilient digital ecosystem, and a strengthened public media and audiovisual sector.

In his inaugural address, the president said Colombia must join the Fourth Industrial Revolution and pledged to train children and young people in artificial intelligence, programming, data science and robotics:

I do not want, dear compatriots, for our young people to be simple consumers of technology created in other latitudes. I want them to be innovative creators and protagonists of the digital world.

The new minister

Falla has held posts at TransMilenio, as deputy manager for communications and user services, and between 2012 and 2015, she was a member of the Autoridad Nacional de Televisión (National Television Authority), where she led the rollout of digital terrestrial television and took part in decisions on television concessions and broadcast spectrum. From 2015, she directed the Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano (Colombian Film Heritage Foundation), and in 2024 she became the first woman to head the Asociación de las Televisiones Educativas y Culturales Iberoamericanas, the association of Ibero-American educational and cultural television networks.

The swearing-in came three days after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake centered on San José del Palmar, in Chocó, struck Colombia on August 10, after which De la Espriella declared an economic emergency to speed reconstruction.

Headline photo: Colombia’s technology minister, Alexandra Falla Zerrate, with the ministry’s two new vice ministers and its new secretary general at their swearing-in, August 13, 2026. From left: Camilo Carrascal Vergel, vice minister of connectivity; the minister; Magda Yolima Amaya Arévalo, secretary general; and Germán Enrique Bacca Medina, vice minister of digital transformation. (Photo courtesy MinTIC)

Colombia’s Information and Communications Technology Minister, Alexandra Falla Zerrate, and Justice and Law Minister Iván Cancino González met in Bogotá on Monday, August 24, 2026, with representatives from Claro, the Colombian unit of Mexico’s América Móvil (NYSE: AMX), Tigo, the local brand of Luxembourg-based Millicom International Cellular (NASDAQ: TIGO), WOM and other mobile carriers to define measures for blocking unauthorized cell phone communications from the country’s prisons. The meeting is the government’s latest attempt to stop inmates from using contraband phones to order extortion and coordinate other crimes from behind bars.

The talks were convened by the Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, or MinTIC) and the Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho (Ministry of Justice and Law, or MinJusticia) to review measures already in place to restrict illegal signals inside penitentiary facilities and to identify the technical, legal and operational obstacles that remain unresolved.

“Our purpose is clear: authority to shut the door on crime, technology in the service of security, and results that protect the peace of mind of Colombians,” Cancino told La FM after the meeting. He said the working group reviewed what has already been done, the current state of measures restricting unauthorized communications in penitentiary facilities, and the technical and operational challenges still to be resolved.

Representatives of the mobile carriers raised concerns and proposals about the measures under study and said they were willing to work with authorities, according to MinTIC. The ministries have not detailed what a new blocking mechanism would look like; officials said specifics would be announced in the coming days once technical evaluations with the carriers are complete.

The problem long predates Monday’s meeting. In January 2026, Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, or INPEC) director Col. Daniel Gutiérrez told Noticias RCN, in comments reported by Infobae, that none of the 16 nationally run prisons equipped with signal jammers were effectively blocking illegal signals: six were nominally active but not generating a working block because they ran on 12- to 15-year-old GSM-era technology unable to keep pace with 4G and 5G networks, and the other 10 were entirely out of service. Gutiérrez also said a signal-blocking trial at the maximum-security wing in Cómbita, Boyacá, left the state facing more than $50 billion COP in fines after the jamming disrupted legitimate cell service for nearby residents — a preview of the balance regulators must strike between blocking prison communications and protecting service for law-abiding Colombians nearby.

The stakes were underscored in July 2026, when Colombia’s Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office, or Fiscalía) charged 17 people, including five INPEC guards, with extortion tied to a scheme run from the El Barne maximum-security prison in Cómbita, according to Vanguardia, citing Agencia EFE. Prosecutors said the guards allowed cell phones and other contraband into the prison so inmates could call victims across several departments and demand payment on behalf of armed criminal structures. Finance Colombia has previously reported on the pattern: a scheme run by the Satanás gang, whose imprisoned leader and members kept extorting Bogotá residents with smuggled phones even after signal jammers were installed, since many of the devices had been pulled from service due to obsolescence or court orders won by nearby residents whose own legitimate calls the jammers had blocked.

The National Police and National Army are also taking part in the effort, MinTIC said, working alongside the ministries and carriers to prevent criminal structures from continuing to direct operations from inside penitentiary facilities. The working group left commitments to keep advancing solutions that strengthen communications control in and around Colombia’s prisons, though the government has yet to say when any new blocking mechanism will take effect.

Headline photo: Ministers Alexandra Falla Zerrate and Iván Cancino González meet with mobile carrier representatives at MinTIC headquarters in Bogotá. (Photo courtesy MinTIC)

Colombia’s fixed internet market continued to expand during the first quarter of 2026, reaching 10.49 million accesses in March, approximately 950,000 more than a year earlier, according to the latest Boletín Trimestral del Sector TIC (Quarterly ICT Sector Bulletin) published by Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC).

The bulletin, which covers January through March, also recorded 10 million 5G accesses during the quarter, representing 7.7% growth from the previous quarter. The figures point to continued expansion of higher-capacity connectivity even as traditional fixed-line telephony continues to decline. The full bulletin is available through the Colombia TIC statistics portal.

“This figure confirms the advance in the expansion of network coverage and capacity.” – MinTIC, in its Quarterly ICT Sector Bulletin

Fiber drives fixed internet growth

Average fixed internet download speeds reached 255.2 Mbps nationally in March, an increase of 17.5 Mbps from a year earlier. Fiber optic connections continued to account for the largest share of fixed internet access, with 6.2 million accesses recorded during the quarter.

Fixed internet penetration reached 19 accesses per 100 inhabitants, continuing the growth trend reported since 2023.

Bogotá recorded the country’s highest fixed internet penetration, at 31 accesses per 100 inhabitants. Antioquia recorded the highest average residential download speeds, exceeding 335 Mbps.

The latest figures reinforce the expansion of fixed broadband infrastructure as Colombia moves toward higher-capacity networks.

5G adoption reaches 10 million

Mobile internet access remained comparatively stable during the first quarter, with 49.6 million accesses recorded nationally. Mobile internet penetration stood at 93 accesses per 100 inhabitants.

4G remained the country’s dominant mobile technology, with 36.5 million accesses. At the same time, 5G adoption continued to accelerate, reaching 10 million accesses, a 7.7% increase from the previous quarter.

Despite that growth, 5G coverage remains geographically limited. MinTIC reported that the technology was available in approximately 12% of Colombia’s municipalities during the quarter.

The expansion follows continued investment in next-generation mobile infrastructure. Finance Colombia previously reported on operators beginning 5G network trials in Colombia while continuing to expand 4G coverage.

Mobile telephony widens its lead over fixed lines

The country’s reliance on mobile communications was also reflected in the latest telephony figures. Colombia had 94.6 million mobile phone lines during the quarter, substantially exceeding the number of fixed lines.

Fixed-line telephony continued its long-term decline. Active fixed lines fell by approximately 760,000 from a year earlier, reaching 5.35 million.

The contrasting trends highlight the changing structure of Colombia’s telecommunications market. Fixed broadband and fiber networks are expanding while mobile connectivity continues to dominate communications and traditional fixed telephony contracts.

The Q1 bulletin provides the latest official snapshot of Colombia’s digital infrastructure as operators continue expanding fiber and 5G networks. Subsequent quarterly data will show whether the pace of 5G adoption and fixed broadband growth continues through the remainder of 2026.

Headline Photo: A man with his phone and beside a 5G pole. (Photo provided by Mintic)

Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) has fined Telecall Colombia more than COP $7.4 billion for failing to meet two administrative obligations linked to its 5G spectrum assignment, while maintaining the company’s commitments to expand connectivity across the country.

Telecall was one of the winners of Colombia’s December 2023 5G spectrum auction. Through the process established under Resolution 3947 of 2023, the company secured an 80 MHz block in the 3500 MHz band, a key frequency for next-generation mobile networks, after submitting a bid of COP $318.3 billion.

The spectrum permit, granted through Resolution 498 of February 23, 2024, authorized Telecall to use the assigned spectrum for 20 years. As part of the agreement, the company accepted a series of investment and coverage obligations designed to support Colombia’s digital inclusion goals.

These commitments include deploying mobile infrastructure along road corridors, providing fiber-optic connectivity to 343 educational institutions, and expanding mobile infrastructure progressively in capital cities and municipalities with populations exceeding 200,000 people.

“The decision does not modify the essential conditions of the spectrum assignment nor reduce the obligations the operator assumed.” – Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC)

MinTIC identified two breaches during its compliance monitoring process: the delayed payment of the first installment of the economic consideration associated with the spectrum assignment and the failure to submit required performance and third-party civil liability guarantees.

The ministry initiated administrative proceedings through Resolutions 05035 and 05033 of 2024. After initial decisions issued in January 2025, Telecall filed requests for reconsideration and appeals.

Following the appeals process, MinTIC determined that any potential termination of the permit would need to follow the formal sanctioning procedure established under Colombia’s Administrative Procedure and Administrative Litigation Code and Law 1341 of 2009, ensuring the company’s right to due process.

The ministry later opened sanctioning proceeding BDI-11784-2026 through Resolution 107 of March 6, 2026. During the process, Telecall completed the outstanding requirements that had triggered the investigation.

The company paid the pending spectrum consideration installment, representing 13% of the economic obligation and including the applicable adjustment, for approximately COP $46.9 billion on March 25, 2026. It also submitted the required performance and civil liability guarantees on March 27, which were reviewed and approved by MinTIC on May 13.

However, the subsequent compliance did not eliminate responsibility for the earlier delays. After completing the administrative process, the Directorate of Surveillance, Inspection and Control issued Resolution 02044 on May 29, 2026, imposing a fine of COP $7.42 billion. The decision became final on June 11, 2026.

To protect the continuity of the infrastructure rollout, MinTIC later issued Resolution 02199 on June 16, 2026, adjusting the timeline for Telecall’s spectrum performance obligations.

The adjustment does not alter the core terms of the spectrum assignment. According to MinTIC, the permit duration, economic consideration, payment obligations, coverage commitments, school connectivity requirements, mobile infrastructure targets, and digital divide objectives remain unchanged.

Headline image: Mauricio Lizcano announcing the inclusion of 5G in Colombia. (Photo shared by MinTic)

Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) will publish daily reports on the cybersecurity work being carried out around the June 21 presidential runoff, posting the summaries at the end of each day on its account on X, formerly Twitter.

The reports cover the activities of the entities that make up the Cyber Unified Command Post (Puesto de Mando Unificado Cibernético, or PMU), among them MinTIC, Colombia’s Cyber Emergency Response Group (ColCERT), the Policía Nacional, and other bodies involved in monitoring and protecting the country’s digital infrastructure. MinTIC said the aim is to strengthen institutional transparency and keep the public informed about the cybersecurity capabilities activated to support the electoral process.

“Our commitment is to report in a timely and transparent way on the actions being taken to protect this coming Sunday’s elections. These reports will allow citizens to learn about the work we are doing through the Cyber Unified Command Post to prevent risks, respond to any contingency, and promote a digital conversation based on verified information,” said Carina Murcia, the minister of information and communications technologies.

According to MinTIC, the PMU maintains continuous monitoring of platforms, digital services, and strategic technology infrastructure, working with national entities and telecommunications operators. The published information will also describe actions taken to prevent incidents, counter disinformation, and promote safe digital environments.

The reports will include recommendations to the public on preventing digital violence and avoiding the spread of false or misleading information. MinTIC said it will post one report per day through Saturday, and on Sunday it will publish updates every hour starting at 8:00 a.m.

The runoff follows the May 31 first round, in which no candidate won an outright majority. It pits leftist senator Iván Cepeda against conservative candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, with the winner due to take office on August 7.

The transition follows a public tender led by Colombia’s Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (MinTIC). Registry.co,  a consortium including Team Internet Group PLC (LON: TIG, OTC: TIGXF), will now manage the domain registry until 2035.

The technological infrastructure supporting the domain is provided by EdgeUno, a company specializing in connectivity, cloud services, and data centers.

Gerardo Aristizábal, director of the consortium operating the.CO domain characterized the migration as an “unprecedented operation in the history of top-level domains. We managed to move more than 3.3 million records without damage or interruptions, complying 100% with the technical and security standards required by the ministry.”

Mehmet Akcin, founder and CEO of EdgeUno (photo: EdgeUno/PRNewswire)

Aristizábal stated that more than 3.3 million records were moved “without disruptions or incidents”. He also confirmed that the process met “100% of the technical and security standards required by the Ministry”.

Mehmet Akcin, founder and CEO of EdgeUno, commented on his company’s role as the infrastructure provider. “Our mission has always been to strengthen the Internet across the region with resilient, secure, and high-performance infrastructure.

Supporting the operation of the.CO domain means reinforcing Colombia’s digital future and empowering thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses that use this extension to project themselves to the world.”

The operator claims the transfer “sets a new world record for the number of domains successfully transferred.” A statement from the company noted the event positions “Colombia as a global benchmark in the technical and operational management of high-traffic domains”.

Headline Photo: Gerardo Aristizábal, director of the consortium operating the.CO domain. Photo credit: Registry.co.

The CRC’s analysis, developed after public consultations with operators, platforms, and academic institutions, determined that the relationship between these three parties is mutually beneficial. Digital platforms drive demand for data, telecom operators provide the necessary connectivity, and users gain access to a wider variety of services and content. The study found no evidence linking the increase in data traffic to unexpected or unplanned investments by operators, considering traffic growth a predictable part of network planning.

The study detailed several key findings regarding digital consumption in Colombia:

• Traffic Growth: The annual growth rate of data traffic in Colombia fell from 103% in 2021 to 10.1% in 2024. This trend contradicts the argument that OTT platforms should be obligated to pay operators for network usage.
• Local Traffic: The majority of fixed and mobile internet traffic now circulates through local peering or cache systems, which may be related to the increased number of data centers deployed by digital ecosystem players.
• Smartphone Use: Smartphone ownership increased from 84% in 2021 to 88% in 2024. Of the surveyed users, 74% use online applications for calls (up from 66% in 2021) and 78% for messaging (up from 69% in 2021). WhatsApp (WhatsApp), owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META), was identified as the most used messaging platform.
• Content Platforms: Approximately 32% of surveyed individuals over 15 years old access audiovisual content platforms. The most used were Netflix (Netflix: NFLX) and Disney+ (The Walt Disney Company: DIS). In the audio sector, 92% of respondents did not have a paid subscription. Among those with a subscription, Spotify (Spotify Technology S.A.: SPOT) was the most used at 47%, followed by YouTube Premium (Alphabet Inc.: GOOGL, GOOG) at 23%.

The report also highlighted that while the use of digital services is increasing, digital infrastructure remains concentrated in major cities, which may limit quality and access in peripheral regions.

Based on its findings, the CRC has outlined four strategic lines of action, some in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC):

• Regulatory Project: A new regulatory project with a normative impact analysis will be launched to further analyze the relationship between OTT platforms, operators, and users.
• Reporting Adjustments: The CRC plans to adjust information reporting requirements to monitor user traffic by network type and platforms accessed.
• New Study: A new study will be conducted to identify and disseminate tools that help users avoid unsolicited content.
• Child Protection: The CRC will work with MinTIC to promote the safe use of technology and protect children and adolescents, in compliance with Law 2489 of 2025.

Video streaming. Photo credit: Frank_Rietsch from Pixabay.