Summary

  • The October agreement covers governance, connectivity, IPv6, IXPs and capacity-building; its public launch does not name a joint workstream or first deliverable.
  • REGULATEL’s Internet Affairs group is already active. Its established formats include a workshop, a member questionnaire with a regional report, and a bulletin.

LACNIC’s 15 October announcement gave the new memorandum a generous map: Internet governance, wider connectivity, a smaller digital divide, IPv6, Internet exchange points, institutional and academic cooperation, and capacity-building for REGULATEL member countries. That is a lot of territory for one press release. It is also a useful pairing. LACNIC brings regional Internet-number and technical expertise; REGULATEL connects telecom regulators across the region and Europe.

The agreement itself points toward a place where that pairing can do work: REGULATEL’s working groups. Its Internet Affairs group already sits at the intersection of regulatory, technical and governance questions. The current group page lists nine active groups, names ENACOM of Argentina and ANATEL of Brazil as coordinators of Internet Affairs, and lists ASEP of Panama among its members. The page also features the group’s fourth 2026 bulletin. There is a room, a remit and a working channel.

REGULATEL’s 2025 terms for this group spell out three practical formats: a workshop or conversation with Internet-ecosystem organizations; a questionnaire to member regulators followed by a regional status report; and a periodic bulletin. The terms are from 2025, while the group page shows that Internet Affairs remains active in 2026. LACNIC’s announcement explicitly includes participation in working groups as one route to capacity-building.

That overlap makes the next step easy to name. Pick one problem from the memorandum—IPv6 deployment or IXP development, for example—and let the Internet Affairs group convene a joint session, collect regulator responses, and publish a report that separates technical barriers from regulatory ones. Put the participating regulators, co-leads, date and next action on the same record. A room full of experts is useful; a report that the next regulator can use is better.

The LACNIC release announces no named joint workstream, lead pair, first activity date or public deliverable. The group already has formats for producing those things. The test for the memorandum is therefore plain: does a broad agenda turn into a piece of work that survives the meeting where it was announced?

LACNIC’s announcement: the official Spanish-language release. REGULATEL: current working groups and the 2025 Internet Affairs terms of reference.