On March 30, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) will conclude the public consultation on the impact in terms of competition of the measures imposed on the preponderant economic agent in the telecommunications sector (AEP-T).
In this space, the various dimensions affected by the AEP-T have been detailed, for example in users, income, profits (EBITDA), spectrum ownership, among others, which result in the lack of competition, excessive concentration and persistent sectoral structure in favor of a single player, América Móvil.
Another of these negative aspects that deserves the regulator to pay special attention in this third review to the asymmetric regulation applicable to the AEP-T, is the deficient quality of the services it provides. Circumstance that is attributable to the containment of resources invested by this player, which barely accounted for 10.8% of the sectoral total registered during 2021.
(Poor) Quality / (In) User Satisfaction. One of the metrics that allows measuring the quality of the services provided to users or their satisfaction with the services provided is the number of nonconformities reported by the IFT in its quarterly “I am a User” reports.
In other words, they are two sides of the same coin.
In its most recent publication, corresponding to the months of July-September 2022 (bit.ly/3Y1Tw4x), the IFT reports an accounting of 6,824 nonconformities during the period, the vast majority, 60.2% of the total attributable to “failures in the service ”, 12.3% to “charges, balances and bonuses”, 7.7% to “contracts” and 5.9% to “change of company keeping the number (Portability)”, among other reasons.
By company, those subsidiaries of the AEP-T (Telmex and Telcel) are in first and third place for the number of reported complaints, with 2,817 corresponding to Telmex (41.3% of the total) and 689 to Telcel (10.0%). The first five places in this category are made up of Megacable (15.4%) in second place, Totalplay (8.4%) in fourth and AT&T (7.5%) in fifth.
These operators accumulate 8 out of 10 nonconformities reported to the IFT.
Nonconformity Factors. In this area, the Internet is the one with the highest number of disagreements with 3,723 (54.6% of the total), and in second place, mobile telephony with 1,752 (25.7%), followed by fixed telephony with 992 (14.5%) and lastly place was paid television with 357 (5.2% of the total).
In the first three markets, the AEP-T is the main operator, a fact that also shows the categorical disagreement of the users with the quality of the services provided by it.
Failures in the service is the main cause of non-conformity among those reported for the AEP-T and consequently the lower quality perceived by users.
In this regard, the pair that integrates the preponderant, Telmex and Telcel, is positioned in the first places for the number of complaints per 100,000 lines and accesses in fixed internet and mobile telephony services, with coefficients of 21.41 and 0.80, respectively.
Once again, these indicators show conclusive deficiencies and notorious advantages in the provision of services by the AEP-T, which it has used due to its high weighting in the market, not only to displace and impose barriers to the development of its competitors, but also to offer a lower quality of your offer.
These circumstances are harmful for AEP-T users who obtain services in suboptimal conditions.
Given this, the IFT must impose additional regulatory measures that ensure the quality of the service, invest enough to strengthen and develop its infrastructure, as well as curb abusive behavior by the AEP-T against the well-being of users in Mexico.
Twitter: @ernestopiedras
