1- This year Congress enacted laws regulating Data Protection, Cybercrime and the most recent enactment refers to the ICT Law, which formulates public policies to regulate the ICT sector, its general structure, the competition regime, service quality, promotion of investment in the sector, as well as the efficient use of networks and radio spectrum.

2- Also, there are important bidding processes in progress related to the administration of the domain name .co, the third private TV channel, and the building and operation of a Colombian satellite.

3- On the other part, the Colombian telecom carrier Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá (ETB) is searching for a partner in order to be more competitive in the telecom sector. ETB, one of the biggest players in Internet access and which additionally participates in the local and long distance phone business, is at this moment a company mainly owned by the local government (Bogotá District, with 88.9% of the shares). This week the terms and conditions in which the search for a partner will be held were issued by ETB. The chosen partner will be entitled to hold 49% of the company’s shares. The companies interested in participating in this process must have the following technical and financial requirements:

a- Holding (i) at least 1,500,000 fixed lines as of December 31, 2008, or as of the date of submission of the “Solicitud de Precalificación” (i.e a request to participate in the bidding procedure by evidencing compliance with minimum requirements) or (ii) a number of mobile accesses of at least 5,000,000 as of December 31 2008, or as of the date of submission of the Solicitud de Precalificación.

b- To hold at least 100,000 Internet accesses as of December 31, 2008, or as of the date of submission of the Solicitud de Precalificación.

c- To have a total income of USD1 Billion during 2008 or during the last fiscal year. The term to submit the “Documentos de Precalificación” (i.e documents evidencing minimum requirements compliance) is September 24, 2009, and the Due Diligence process will begin on July 8, 2008 and will expire on October 1, 2009.

According to reports by local stock broker Correval, the current financial situation of ETB is good, having profits of COP 204,136 million in 2008 (approx. USD 97,673,000). The first quarter of 2009 closed with an income of COP 49.997 million (approx. USD$23,922,000). Currently each ETB share in the Colombian stock market has a value of 942 pesos (USD $0,45).