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 Technology News | October 2006 
Mexico Approves 'Triple-Play' Communications
 Cyntia Barrera Diaz - Reuters
| | Critics say letting massive Telmex into the television market too soon could hurt smaller cable companies or even established television outlets like Televisa or TV Azteca. |
Mexico gave final approval this week for a “triple play” plan to let telephone companies enter the television market and for cable and other media firms sell phone services.
The new standard, which allows the delivery of high-speed Internet, television and phone services over a single connection, went into effect on Wednesday, the Communications and Transport Ministry (SCT) said.
Fixed-line service leader Telefonos de Mexico's operating permit did not include television services when it was granted years ago.
It will have to ask the government to modify its license to add television services. Mexico's telecommunications watchdog Cofetel will decide whether Telmex will have to pay for this.
All parties interested in offering “triple play” will have to make sure their networks can interconnect with each other to guarantee incoming and outgoing traffic, the SCT said.
Telmex and Mexico's main broadcasters had no immediate comment.
Critics say letting massive Telmex into the television market too soon could hurt smaller cable companies or even established television outlets like Televisa or TV Azteca.
Telmex has complained it invested billions of dollars to deploy a phone network that can reach even remote and unprofitable regions, while cable companies only serve big cities like Monterrey, Guadalajara or Mexico.
Mexico's competition agency recently said Telmex needed to be regulated more than smaller competitors before debuting in new markets like television.
“We have to control it much more, you have to get in order, you have to design asymmetrical regulations because its size is asymmetrical,” Eduardo Perez Motta, head of Mexico's Federal Competition Commission, told Reuters last week.
Analysts believe it could take a long time for the new telecom standard to become a strong revenue generator.
“I don't see a strong contribution (to Telmex's) results in the short term,” said Scotiabank analyst Ana Gabriela Ocejo.
One of the key issues that authorities will have to sort out with the implementation of the new standard is number portability, which would allow phone users to switch carriers without changing their phone numbers.
Last month, regulators said number portability could start in May 2007 on a limited basis. During the first stage of the program, portability will be exclusively from fixed-line to fixed-line and mobile to mobile, and will require the customer to remain in the same area.
Cofetel is also expected to come up with a separate set of rules as to how mobile phone, trunking and paging companies would interact under the “triple play” scheme. |
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