Cables Analysis
CondoSat
On 16 September the president said the satellite does not work. On the 25th his minister said it has served the country and signed with Hispasat to replace it. What he signed only allows Bolivia to explore.
By Violeta Ayala — Tecnóloga
The announcement
On Friday 25 September, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's Minister of Public Works, Services and Housing, Mauricio Zamora, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Spanish company Hispasat to explore Bolivia's participation in a project called Condosat.
The European Union's ambassador to Bolivia, Jaume Segura, attended, along with the Spanish embassy's minister counsellor, Andrés de Zulueta de la Riva, and Hispasat's director of public affairs, Alejandro Jordán. The agreement falls under Global Gateway, the European Union's investment strategy.
The minister's argument was the calendar. He said the Túpac Katari has served the country but is nearing the end of its useful life, and summed up the decision this way: a responsible government does not wait for the crisis to arrive, it anticipates it.
He added that he wants continuity without unnecessary debt, that a country without connection is a country with first and second-class citizens, and that digital sovereignty is preserved. The debt line is aimed at the Chinese loan that paid for the current satellite, which still carries between 40 and 50 million dollars outstanding.
What a satellite condominium is
Hispasat's idea is to build a satellite where each country owns an apartment. Hence the name. The partners share the infrastructure and each one receives a slice of capacity.
The company told the Colombian magazine Semana in 2025 that a project like this takes three to four years to get into orbit, and that each partner country would have its own teleport, so that local authorities keep control over the security of their communications. That point, if it ends up written into the contract, is the strongest argument in the scheme's favour.
Figures from the 25 September 2026 event and from coverage by La Razón, the Bolivian Information Agency and the EFE news agency. Several outlets published the capacity as gigabytes per second; the correct unit is gigabits.
The stated use for that capacity is what a state satellite is for. Rural communities with no terrestrial coverage, schools, health centres, municipalities, the digital government agenda, and the offices of Correos de Bolivia turned into service counters.
There is also a technology transfer component aimed at the Bolivian Space Agency and the universities. The minister summed it up by saying they want the knowledge to stay in Bolivia.
The fine print
What was signed is less than the announcement suggests. The European Union's statement says the agreement allows Bolivia to explore its participation in Condosat.
Explore. The minister himself clarified that the memorandum is a framework instrument that creates no immediate financial obligations. What it does create is a technical working group, chaired by his ministry with support from the telecommunications regulator, which will meet every month to size the country's connectivity demand for the next fifteen years.
That does not make it irrelevant. Planning three years ahead is exactly what was missing, and the minister is right when he says technical decisions should come before promises.
It does mean there is still no contract, no price, no governance rules, and no decision on where the Bolivian teleport would sit. Without those four things, the digital sovereignty that was announced is an aspiration and not a feature of the agreement.
Nine days
On 16 September, presenting the new digital identity system, President Rodrigo Paz asked what 300 million dollars had been spent on a satellite that does not work for, when you can have a little dish connecting you to Starlink anywhere in the country.
That same day sala.red published that his own Ministry of Public Works had reported, in December 2025, that the Túpac Katari runs at 88% occupancy, above the international standard. The video of that story passed 150,000 views on TikTok.
On 25 September, that same ministry announced Condosat, and its head said the Túpac Katari has served the country.
Nine days separate the two sentences. In the first the satellite does not work. In the second it served the country and is nearing the end of its useful life, which is an accurate description and the one we had been citing from the official documents.
The gap
A calendar problem remains that nobody has explained. Supreme Decree 5509, signed by this same government on 22 December 2025, states that the useful life of the geostationary satellite in operation is projected to 2028. The Bolivian Space Agency's technical sheet records thirteen years of useful life, which also lands on 2028.
The agency's former director, Iván Zambrana, said in February 2026 that operational efficiency had extended that life to 2030. Condosat would enter service between 2029 and 2030.
If the right date is 2028, there are up to two years in which Bolivia would have neither its own satellite nor a shared replacement.
Nobody has said who covers that gap. The only answer already operating in the country since February is called Starlink.
Three doors
This memorandum completes a board worth looking at whole, because in less than a year Bolivia opened its satellite connectivity to three different blocs.
Who came in where
Tap each one.
Built from the text of Supreme Decree 5509, coverage of Starlink's start of operations in Bolivia, reporting on the Chinese constellations, and the announcement of 25 September 2026.
One detail is worth following. In February, when the regulator reported on Starlink's experimental licence, it was also reported that Hispasat had applied to enter the Bolivian market, alongside Amazon's Kuiper project.
Seven months later, that same company is the state's counterpart in defining its satellite future. Both things can be perfectly legitimate. Someone should explain how those two roles are kept apart, because a company that wants to sell services in a market and a company that sits down with the state to decide what infrastructure to buy should not be the same table.
What is still missing
The working group meets every month, so there is time to ask properly and to get the answers into the agreement before it is signed. These are public questions and anyone can file them.
What is the official end-of-life date for the Túpac Katari, 2028 or 2030. Who covers the period between shutdown and Condosat's arrival. Where would the Bolivian teleport sit and under whose jurisdiction. Who decides on the 10 gigabits assigned to Bolivia, and through what mechanism. What it will cost once it stops being a memorandum. What became of the replacement satellite project the agency says it keeps updated, estimated at around 150 million dollars.
An apartment in a shared building beats having no roof, and is considerably worse than a house of your own.
Which of the three Condosat turns out to be depends on what the contract says, and the contract does not exist yet. In the meantime, what Bolivia has up there is still its own, paid for, running at 88%, and with no confirmed shutdown date.
Sources
- La Razón, 25 September 2026, reporting by Rodolfo Aliaga: the signing of the memorandum with Hispasat, total projected capacity of 120 gigabits per second, preliminary allocation of 10 gigabits to Bolivia at cost, a horizon of at least fifteen years, entry into service projected between 2029 and 2030, planned uses in rural communities, schools, health centres, municipalities, digital government and Correos de Bolivia, the technology transfer component aimed at the Bolivian Space Agency and universities, the absence of immediate financial obligations, the creation of the technical working group chaired by the ministry with support from the regulator and meeting monthly, and backing from the European Union along with Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, France and Poland.
- Bolivian Information Agency, 25 September 2026: statements by Minister Mauricio Zamora on the service the Túpac Katari has provided and the end of its useful life, on anticipating the crisis, on maintaining digital sovereignty, on keeping the knowledge in Bolivia, and on first and second-class citizens.
- EFE, 25 September 2026: the agreement's place within the European Union's Global Gateway strategy, the presence of Ambassador Jaume Segura, Minister Counsellor Andrés de Zulueta de la Riva and Hispasat's director of public affairs Alejandro Jordán, the text of the European Union statement about Bolivia exploring participation in Condosat, and Hispasat's existing Condosat agreements with Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic.
- Semana, 2025: Hispasat's explanation of the satellite condominium model, the estimated three to four years to build the satellite, and the plan for each partner to have its own teleport so local authorities control the security of their communications.
- Text of Supreme Decree 5509 of 22 December 2025, on the useful life of the geostationary satellite in operation projected to 2028; the TKSAT-1 technical sheet from the Bolivian Space Agency, recording thirteen years of useful life; and statements by the agency's former director Iván Zambrana in February 2026 on the extension to 2030, the outstanding balance of between 40 and 50 million dollars on the Chinese loan, and the replacement satellite project estimated at around 150 million.
- Ministry of Public Works, Services and Housing, December 2025: satellite occupancy of 88%, above the international standard.
- Coverage by the Bolivian telecommunications regulator and Bolivian media on the experimental licence granted to Starlink in February 2026 and on the market entry applications filed by Hispasat and by Amazon's Kuiper project.
This piece describes a memorandum of understanding whose full text is not public at the time of publication, and relies on official statements made at the event and on the coverage cited. It does not claim that the announcement of 25 September responds to sala.red's earlier reporting or to any particular publication. It records the sequence of official statements, which is verifiable in the sources cited, and establishes no causal relationship between them: an event of this kind is organised weeks in advance. The view count corresponds to the platform's public counter. The figures on capacity, timelines and allocation come from the minister's statements and not from a contractual document, and may change. This piece makes no claim of wrongdoing by Hispasat or by any official; the separation of roles is raised as a question of public interest. No person or company mentioned has been accused of any crime.
