Mexican mobile operator Telcel has filed several complaints to the Mexican Competition Commission concerning alleged monopolistic practices from several other companies, including Grupo Salinas and Grupo Televisa.
Telcel also made complaints about the…
Mexican mobile operator Telcel has filed several complaints to the Mexican Competition Commission concerning alleged monopolistic practices from several other companies, including Grupo Salinas and Grupo Televisa.
Telcel also made complaints about the National Chamber of the Cable Telecommunications Industry (CANITEC) and several of its affiliates.
In a statement, Telcel said that the allegations were based on several factors, including the alleged existence of arrangements between its competitors to fix, raise and manipulate the price of advertising and to segment various markets amongst themselves.
The allegations also included the alleged existence of arrangements between the competitors and other economic agents to put pressure on Telcel and others to accept discriminatory and anti-competitive policies with regard to advertising and interconnection.
Luis Mancera, the VP of Telecom Legal and Regulatory affairs at Grupo Televisa, strongly refuted the claims.
He said: “It has absolutely no merits and it’s intended to create smoke on the real issue at hand”.
Mancera said that the main issue was Telcel’s obligation to respect a new interconnection rate set by the Mexican telecoms regulator of Ps0.3912 (US$0.0328)
This is far lower than the rate that Telcel was reportedly seeking (Ps0.95/US$0.80).
The lower interconnection rate is expected to save Mexican consumers around US$6bn a year.
Mancera said: “Such benefits to the consumer will be suspended through their constant abuse of legal procedures.”
A spokesman for Grupo Salinas also said that the underlying issue here was interconnection rates.
Speaking to TelecomFinance, he said: “You have Telmex, which controls over 70% of the fixed lines in Mexico, and Telcel, which controls over 70% of the cellphone subs, making a complaint to the Competition Commission about a television broadcaster [Grupo Salinas] that is a minority participant in its market with about 25-30% market share.”
Both Telcel and Telmex are owned by the regional telecoms giant America Movil.
In early March, a group of 25 telcos reportedly wrote to the Mexican government calling for the introduction of “pro-competition” regulation and said that they were not willing to pay interconnection charges to Telcel.
