Communications Ministers from the member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUL) signed a declaration reaffirming the commitment to continue working together to ensure the interconnection of their communication networks at a meeting in Asunción, Paraguay, in March. The Ministers approved the deadlines for implementation of each phase of the optical fiber ring project, which should be completed in three years.

The document highlights the importance of the project to enable citizens to have a faster connection at lower prices, in addition to strengthening national sovereignty. Currently, the path taken by data in a simple internet connection is extensive and costly: for internet accesses from Brazil to a site in Chile, for example, the connection goes to a server in the United States via submarine cables, then back to Chile. With the optical ring interconnecting South American countries, data traffic would go directly to the local network. The declaration also highlights the need to work towards the generation, storage and distribution of local content in order to increase the importance of data traffic within the region.

Ministers from the following countries signed the document: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.