The Regulatory Unit of Communication Services (Ursec) responded to an old complaint from foreign postal parcel operators and also from Uruguayan consumers when importing electronic devices with Wi-Fi and / or Bluetooth. Through the rUrsec resolution No. 275/2021 on December 9, “it was resolved to enable entry into the country through postal parcels without requiring the prior intervention of this unit (Ursec) in the corresponding process, devices that operate with Wifi4, Wifi5 and Wifi6 technologies and / or as Bluetooth, “reported the communications regulator.
Couriers questioned the previous Ursec regulation because it impaired and discouraged the purchase of electronic products from abroad. Since 2017, operators have been claiming that shipments of products with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity are not retained by Customs and can enter the country without a Ursec certification, since those teams they are not considered dangerous for the radio spectrum and they do not interfere with other equipment.
This control arose from Decree 152/989 referred to the import and marketing regime of radioelectric transmitting equipment and transceivers aimed at the radio spectrum control and the high-power equipment that uses it (communication radios, antennas or radars).
Lack of execution in updating the rules, ended up encompassing low-power equipment that didn’t even exist at the time“, for example, Wireless keyboards or mice, smart watches, speakers, headphones, or any device with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
To get certified by Ursec, each person had to register in the Single Window for Foreign Trade (VUCE), start the process —which has a delay of up to 48 hours—, pay $ 194 and wait for the Ursea to authorize it.
“One of the great pillars of electronic commerce is the simplification of processes that favor the consumer. Users who buy on online platforms want everything to be as fast and simple as possible. Having to manage a certification before a public entity and having to pay an extra, to be able to bring, for example, wireless headphones, is a great disincentive”, He had declared to El Observador in October of this year Federico Nogueira, president of the Uruguayan Chamber of Couriers (CUC).
The President of the Ursec, Mercedes Aramendía, declared at that time that the Ursec was working so that “the procedures are simpler and that some teams, according to their technical conditions, can enter in a simplified way”.
