2012 OECD Report over Telecommunications Policy and Regulation in Mexico
By Adina Moloman
Source: OECD
Mexico had its telecommunications policy and regulation reviewed as a request of the Mexican Government.
This report is having its evaluations and is giving recommendations over Telecommunications Policy in Mexico by using a data base collected in 2010 and 2011.
The result of the analysis, in briefly, is that Mexico is a country with less effective regulations and policies to promote open and fair competition in telecommunication comparing to other OECD’s countries.
The lack of competitiveness raises a high cost to Mexican economy by providing high costs for consumers and regular quality service. Carlos Slim Monopolistic Telecommunication Mexico Corporation, costs the Mexican economy around USD 25 billion each year.
From a list of 34 OECD countries Mexico is at the end of the list when it comes to market penetration for fixed, mobile and broadband markets, with a very low investment per capita indicator mostly because there is a high profit margins of its monopolistic company’s operators.
In order to avoid this, OECD launched a series of recommendations:
To empower the regulatory authority COFETEL, which has to undertake market reviews, declare that a player has market power, and impose, and effectively enforce, the appropriate remedies, including asymmetric regulation, and also being properly in charge of the telecommunication policy and regulatory functions and nevertheless to establish non-discriminatory conditions for access to bottleneck facilities and enable lower calling costs.
To encourage foreign investment and ownership in fixed-line networks, this for the moment is not possible.
Reform the current concession system and make available sufficient spectrum resources and backbone fiber to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband data services and backbone connectivity.
