What: Telefonica is rolling out a new 4G LTE mobile-broadband network in Mexico that may span 300 cities nationwide and cover 70 percent of the population, by 2015.
Why it matters: Telefonica’s Mexican mobile unit, provides service to nearly 21.9 million users.By opening its networks to other operators and agents, the company is increasing competition considerably.
The Mexican unit of Spain’s Telefonica plans to roll out a new 4G LTE mobile-broadband network in Mexico that by 2015 will span 300 cities nationwide, covering 70 percent of the population, the company said in a statement.
Telefonica Public Affairs and Regulation Director Carlos Lopez Blanco said Mexico’s recent moves to open up its telecommunications sector will generate greater investment and more competition.”It’s essential from an international perspective that this process lead to the telecommunications sector becoming an engine for competitiveness,” Lopez Blanco said at the end of his visit to Mexico.The executive met with Mexico’s deputy communications secretary, Jose Ignacio Peralta; the president of the Senate’s telecommunications committee, Javier Lozano; and directors of the IFT regulatory agency.
Telefonica is opening its networks to other operators and agents, “which increases competition,” Lopez Blanco said, adding that the company will “keep moving forward by enhancing digital literacy and promoting investment in broadband.”He said Telefonica is committed to technological development with a view to making the digital economy a reality.
To that end, he said his company has prepared a Digital Manifesto with 10 recommendations “that will improve users’ experience on the Internet and promote greater investment in digital infrastructures.”Telefonica’s Mexican mobile unit, which operates under the Movistar brand, provides service to roughly 21.9 million users.
The IFT issued a resolution in March declaring Mexico City-based America Movil – Telefonica’s chief rival in Latin America – and other companies controlled by multi-billionaire Carlos Slim to be a “preponderant economic agent” in Mexico’s telecommunications market.
The IFT was created as part of a telecommunications and broadcast media overhaul proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration and approved last year.America Movil’s Mexican cellular unit Telcel – one of the companies included in the IFT’s ruling, along with fixed-line giant Telmex, holding company Grupo Carso and Slim’s Grupo Financiero Inbursa financial arm – controls roughly 70 percent of Mexico’s wireless business.
That dominant-player tag slapped on America Movil entails “imposition of asymmetric (interconnection) rates” and the sharing of infrastructure at rates to be negotiated among the operators, the company said last month.
Source: EFE
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