Mexico to launch consultations on dominance regulations

Mexico plans to launch public consultations on the effectiveness of the preponderance regulations imposed on leading telco América Móvil and dominant broadcasting operator Televisa in March.

The move is part of 20 public consultations planned for this year by sector regulator IFT.

The public consultations open the field for stakeholders and the general public to have a say on how the regulator goes about enforcing competition and technical rules in the telecoms and broadcasting sectors.

The consultation on the preponderance rules imposed on América Móvil, the leading telecoms operator in the country with around 62% of the mobile market, seeks to gauge the effectiveness of asymmetric rules imposed on the company since 2014 in an effort to increase market competition and access.

The company has been subject to asymmetric interconnection rules and is also banned from offering pay TV in the country as a result of its market position. It is also in the process of a regulator-ordered split of its wholesale fixed line business to offer equal terms to all competitors on its vast network.

The consultation on Televisa's asymmetric regulations, including must-carry and must-offer conditions on pay TV platforms, has similar objectives. The IFT could revise some of its competitive measures after reviewing the consultations.

The IFT, which announced its work plan for 2019 earlier in February, also plans to move forward with a public consultation regarding a project to guarantee that Mexican telecom users can port their numbers from one operator to the another within 24 hours.

Two other consultations planned for March include updating competition probe guidelines, as well as creating guidelines for traffic and network management for internet providers.

The regulator also plans to launch consultations regarding orbital resources and passive infrastructure sharing, as well as one regarding the tender of 10MHz of spectrum on the 1.7GHz band for mobile telecoms and remaining available segments of the 2.5GHz band.

Another consultation will ask for input regarding the creation of a platform for supporting startups and innovations in telecommunications in the country.