CONATEL homologation rules review targets 5G and Smart TV devices

Modernizing these regulations is essential for hardware manufacturers seeking to deploy 5G and IoT infrastructure in Paraguay without navigating case-by-case legal hurdles. By addressing the current lack of cybersecurity mandates, CONATEL aims to harmonize with regional neighbors like Brazil, reducing the risk of the country becoming a destination for non-compliant hardware. This shift toward digital processing and family-based approvals should significantly lower the administrative burden for streaming device importers. Watch for the upcoming alternatives analysis and draft regulation to see if CONATEL adopts the EN 18031 security standard as a mandatory requirement for all radio-enabled equipment.

Paraguay's CONATEL homologation rules review sits within a broader Latin American push to modernize equipment certification frameworks for 5G and IoT. Brazil's ANATEL, which CONATEL has historically referenced as a regional benchmark, has been updating its own type-approval processes to accommodate new device categories including 5G modems and IoT sensors. The International Telecommunication Union has been advising regulators across South America on harmonizing certification procedures to reduce duplication and lower barriers for manufacturers deploying across multiple markets. Paraguay's move toward recognizing international standards and introducing family-based approvals mirrors the direction ANATEL has taken, potentially reducing the administrative burden for companies already certified in neighboring jurisdictions. The business implications of CONATEL's modernization extend to the competitive dynamics of 5G network deployment in Paraguay and the wider region. Ericsson, which has been positioning its AI-driven network optimization tools across Latin American operators, demonstrated at MWC 2026 that its AI-native link adaptation technology can extract 10 percent additional spectrum efficiency from existing deployments, a capability that becomes commercially relevant only when regulators have cleared the path for compliant hardware. Meanwhile, Blue Planet and Telefónica Deutschland completed a joint proof of concept using agentic AI to automate 5G network slicing service design, completing tasks in minutes that previously required weeks of manual engineering. While that PoC focused on European operations, it illustrates the operational complexity that regulators like CONATEL must anticipate as operators seek to deploy network slicing for video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive services. On the technical side, the Ericsson Mobility Report published in June 2025 provided data that underscores why CONATEL's framework update is timely. The report found that a medium-quality AI agent implementation embedded in AR headsets at 20 percent adoption could boost uplink traffic by 47 percent and downlink by 14 percent, figures that would directly impact spectrum planning and device certification requirements. The same report noted that generative AI traffic currently represents only 0.06 percent of total network data traffic but carries a fundamentally different profile, with 26 percent flowing in the uplink compared to the traditional 10 percent. Ericsson's networks chief Per Narvinger noted at MWC 2026 that the shift from entertainment-focused mobile usage toward AI-driven uplink workloads will fundamentally change network traffic patterns, making it essential for regulators to have homologation frameworks that can accommodate new device categories without case-by-case legal interpretation. For Paraguay, where and and streaming device imports have grown alongside mobile broadband expansion, the absence of specific certification categories for these devices creates compliance uncertainty that CONATEL's proposed reforms aim to resolve.