After recently announced plans to limit the fees America Movil can charge customers, it looks like the Mexican telecoms regulator and billionaire Carlos Slim’s telecoms giant America Movil are heading for another scrap.
According to Reuters, the country’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) has said wants an end to certain charges on consumers levied for a number of services including unlocking devices and out-of-network roaming. It also wants an end to promotional prices.
How IFT will carry out this programme was not revealed, though, not surprisingly, America Movil did not feel the measures were appropriate.
The IFT has been fairly upfront about its desire to lessen America Movil’s influence on the market, not least in order to encourage competition, but the company, whose Mexican mobile brand is Telcel, is still Mexico’s dominant player.
Attempts to limit America Movil’s dominance in the market began about six years ago. However, America Movil has argued that the 2013-14 reform aimed at cutting the company down to size has indeed had an effect and that today it does not have the same power. It added that it would challenge the resolution “in accordance with applicable law”.
An IFT review of the company and its subsidiaries takes place every two years.
Whether America Movil is a monopolistic player is a point the two sides clearly don’t agree on. However, competitor AT&T has been quoted as saying that it hopes that the regulator will “take decisive steps to implement asymmetric measures that allow progress towards effective competition in the sector”.
AT&T serves about 13 percent of the Mexican wireless market compared to an America Movil share of over 70 percent. America Movil also has a large number of subsidiaries in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
