What the government announced
ICT Minister Alexandra Falla Zerrate and Defense Minister, retired General Jorge Eduardo Mora López, presented the measure on October 15 and 16, according to MinTIC, Impacto TIC and Mobile Time. “Colombia's telecommunications are a strategic asset of the Nation,” Mora López said, according to Mobile Time. The main measures are:
- A permanent Ministry of Defense team at MinTIC, with access to classified information, to coordinate network protection and immediate incident response.
- Coordination with ColCERT, the digital incident response team, and, according to Mobile Time, with the Joint Cyber Command of the Armed Forces.
- A strategy with four dimensions: physical, legal, technological and digital, which will be part of the Plan TIC 2026.
So far no numbered decree or resolution has been published: this is a policy and coordination announcement between ministries, with no published budget or timelines.
Why now
The government gave three reasons. The first is security: the Defense Minister noted that narco-terrorist groups use cell phones and digital platforms to extort and recruit minors. The second is coordination: for years there was a liaison mechanism between the two ministries, but it stopped operating without a replacement.
The third reason is resilience. The August 10 earthquake, with its epicenter in San José del Palmar (Chocó), exposed the fragility of the networks. According to Minister Falla, quoted by Mobile Time, in the following hours network unavailability exceeded 55% in Quindío and 50% in Chocó, and recovery took several days. Falla attributed the outages to power failures, the lack of redundancy at some points and the need for tested emergency protocols. “When one of them fails, it's not just one service that goes down; the economy is interrupted at the same time,” the minister said, according to Impacto TIC.
TeleSemana places the decision in a global context of geopolitical tensions and recalls that Colombia had already declared internet an essential public service with Ley 2108 de 2021.
What infrastructure is protected
The ICT Minister mentioned mobile phone antennas, fiber optic backbone networks, base stations, submarine cable landing stations, data centers and satellite stations. A few figures help size what is at stake, according to TeleSemana with MinTIC and CRC data as of November 2025:
- 12 submarine cable systems land in Colombia (including Manta, under construction), 11 of them on the Caribbean coast.
- 41 data centers in the country.
- The 4G network covers 94.5% of the territory, and fiber already accounts for 55% of fixed connections.
According to the ITU, cited by Impacto TIC, submarine cables carry more than 99% of international data traffic.
What is still unknown
Specialized media agree that details are missing. There is no numbered administrative act, no indicators and no budget. TeleSemana asks what the concrete obligations for operators will be and how much it will cost them to comply, and points out that protecting infrastructure is not the same as making it resilient: redundancy and recovery capacity are also needed. Brazil and the European Union, for example, already require operators to report incidents and comply with cybersecurity rules.
What it means for companies in Colombia and Latin America
The measure is positive: more coordination between the State, operators and cybersecurity authorities should translate into faster response to attacks, theft or disasters. But your company's communications continuity does not depend on the government alone. The August earthquake showed that a network outage can last for days. It is worth reviewing:
- Redundancy: make sure your lines don't depend on a single operator, a single route or a single physical site.
- Contingency plan: tested call forwarding, emergency schedules and alternative channels such as WhatsApp or SMS to notify your customers.
- Power: backup power for network equipment at critical sites.
- Cybersecurity: strong passwords, two-factor authentication and monitoring of your phone system to prevent fraud.
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