On Monday of last week we found out from two nationally circulated newspapers that the delegate of the “Wellness Programs” for Mexico City had announced that the federal government had begun the delivery of 16,000 SIM cards for mobile telephony “Internet for All program” to beneficiaries and rightful claimants of the Well-being Programs who want to have the mobile phone service offered by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
When looking at the notes of the two newspapers, it can be inferred without major complications that they were prepared from a statement from that entity called “Programs for Well-being”, because the content of both is very similar in terms of the announcement itself, what is being delivered to the beneficiaries of the programs (the SIM cards), the characteristics of the package that they are given during the first month, and the requirements to obtain it. What the beneficiaries of the program get with the SIM card “…includes activation and the basic monthly package free for the first month. This package offers 600 MB in social networks, 1 GB of internet, 100 minutes of telephone calls and 50 SMS for 30 days…”.
No one is against the government structuring support programs so that people or households in the lowest income deciles can have access to telecommunications services, mainly broadband, or so that people who live in localities where there are no coverage of commercial networks due to the high cost of bringing service to these areas, benefit from the arrival of this type of infrastructure.
However, in the case of what the federal government is doing, or is trying to do, with the company CFE Telecommunications and Internet for All (CFETEIT) there is a lot of confusion. First, because it is a company that obtained a concession to participate as another operator in the telecommunications sector, with limitations that prevent it from operating in areas where there is already a presence of other operators that offer mobile telecommunications services.
Its presence in the market causes confusion because when it began to offer services in different areas of the country, it was not clear if it was really limiting itself to the areas that it is allowed, according to its concession. From that moment it was noticed that the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) is not concerned if this concessionaire complies to the letter with what its concession establishes, in terms of what it can do and what it cannot do, because it remained silent before the doubts that arose in the media on the subject.
What is very clear is that CFETEIT cannot offer SIM cards in any of the 16 municipalities in Mexico City, because they all have coverage from other operators. The only thing that CFETEIT can do in those 16 municipalities as a concessionaire is to offer its wholesale service to other operators, but not to the general public.
It also causes confusion that the delivery of SIM cards is announced as part of the “Wellness Programs”, because within all the programs listed on the website of this entity, there is no program called “Internet for All”. ”.
So the delivery that the federal government is making of the 16,000 SIM cards deviates from the regulatory framework provided for the telecommunications sector, both for what it does to the limitations of CFETEIT provided for in its concession title to provide retail services in CDMX , such as the provisions on competition provided for in the law on the matter.
So we are facing conduct both by the federal government itself and by CFETEIT that is not consistent with the legal framework for the telecommunications sector, conduct that a regulatory body with effective constitutional autonomy should review. Is the IFT doing it? This case illustrates the importance of the regulator being independent from the central government or its companies due to the lack of certainty that they can generate for other operators. In fact, it is a commitment in the T-MEC.
*The author is an economist.
Twitter: @GerardoFloresR
