Can You Hear Me Now? Mexico Proposes New Telecom Laws
Can You Hear Me Now? Mexico Proposes New Telecom Laws
As Mexico proposes to reform its telecommunications industry, AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth suggests that in order to liberalize the market, provisions and impartial regulations must be enforced.
The reform would open the Mexican telecommunications market to greater foreign investment.
The Mexican government is taking aim at the system that enriched the country’s billionaires with a proposed reform of its telecommunications industry.
Backed by all three major political parties and President Enrique Peña Nieto, the reform would open the telecommunications market to greater foreign investment, create two new all-access television channels, and subject companies to tougher competition rules – all with an eye on providing Mexican consumers with more choice and lower prices when it comes to phone and television services….
The reform sets up a new regulatory agency that would ostensibly have sharper teeth, including the ability to levy sanctions, impose additional regulations on dominant players, and limit market concentration nationally and regionally. New specialized courts would be led by judges with expertise in competition and telecommunications law.
“If you are going to create the potential for liberalized industry, you have to have somebody to enforce the provisions,” says Eric Farnsworth, vice president Council of Americas in Washington DC. “The regulator has to be impartial and insulated from political pressures to the extent possible.”
Mexicans may not immediately see more options in areas like landline phone service, where growth is slow and potential competitors may still be wary to take on Telmex, Mr. Farnsworth says. But the reform may well open the door to “new services that we take for granted in the US – broadband, clearly,” Fransworth says….
