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 Business News | November 2005 
Mexico Regulator Wants Phone Access for Cable Firms
 Reuters
Mexico City - Mexico's anti-monopoly commission urged the government on Tuesday to allow cable companies to offer phone services through their networks, arguing that such access would lower call prices.
Mexico's Federal Competition Commission (CFC) urged the government in a statement to grant cable companies access to the telecommunications market "as soon as possible and with the least possible red tape."
Cable companies in the United States are rapidly encroaching into the U.S. telecommunications business.
While Mexican cable companies, including Cablevision, a unit of No. 1 media company Televisa, already have the technology to provide phone services, the government has not yet granted any such licenses.
Mexican cable companies may only offer customers phone services by allowing third party telecoms companies to piggyback on their networks.
"These concessions should have been made years ago," CFC president Eduardo Perez Motta told Reuters.
Mexico's leading fixed-line telephone company Telmex, owned by tycoon Carlos Slim, dominates the country's telecommunications market. A Telmex spokeswoman declined comment on Tuesday.
Mexico's government is not obliged to accept the anti-monopoly commission's suggestions, but Perez Motta said the CFC's recommendations had been well received by officials in the communications ministry.
The CFC suggested in Tuesday's statement that telecommunications companies such as Telmex should be allowed to offer video services to customers two years after cable companies are granted phone licenses.
Cable companies see the head start as essential to getting a foothold in the market, but analysts say Telmex is likely to oppose a two-year wait. |
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