The president of Mexican telecom regulator Cofetel, Mony de Swaan, has called for a new convergence agreement to boost telecoms development.
In an article for the Mexican magazine Nexos, de Swaan said that a new convergence agreement needed to revisit…
The president of Mexican telecom regulator Cofetel, Mony de Swaan, has called for a new convergence agreement to boost telecoms development.
In an article for the Mexican magazine Nexos, de Swaan said that a new convergence agreement needed to revisit previous convergence laws set down in 2006. These laws – widely seen as being aimed at controlling Carlos Slim’s Telmex – stipulated that an operator can only enter the television market if it has already provided full interconnection, interoperability and number portability.
In the article, de Swaan said that operators could be allowed to provide all their services as long they pay a tax to the state.
He noted the price cap system used by Telmex, which means that there is a ceiling on the amount it can charge for a bundle of basic telecoms services, which he described as affordable for many Mexicans and widely distributed.
More generally, de Swaan said that there had been significant telecoms development in Mexico over the past decade, but that the country still lagged behind most others in terms of the reach and quality of the service.
He laid out a short-term agenda for making Cofetel more efficient and transparent, promoting more auctions for spectrum, boosting competition, and producing a legal framework aimed at modernisation.
The article made clear that de Swaan’s remarks reflected a personal opinion, and were not necessarily the view of Cofetel.
