Crocodile tears at the first discussion

I closely followed the first discussion on the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Bill that President Claudia Sheinbaum submitted to the Senate on April 23. I've already shared some thoughts on the bill's content in this space in the two previous installments. Fortunately, there are indications that aspects that pose a risk of censorship would be modified, but it remains to be seen how far it will go to secure the acceptance of modifications to such important aspects as the possibility of blocking digital platforms or requiring television channels to request permission from the Ministry of the Interior to broadcast programs produced with foreign funding.

The latter, for example, is provided for in Article 201 of the initiative, and would mean that pay-TV channels such as CNN, Fox News, Deutsche Welle (DW), BBC, RTVE, Antena 3, and RT (Russia Today) would have to request authorization from an unchecked political authority regarding what they can and cannot include in their programming. In other words, they would have to submit to the discretion of Ministry of the Interior (Segob), who would become a kind of judge regarding what Mexicans can watch when it comes to programs produced with foreign funding.

Now, on the competition side, there are several aspects to consider, especially those related to the distribution of powers between the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency and the new National Antitrust Commission proposed in the proposed reform of the Federal Economic Competition Law. Because if anything should be clear, both in President Sheinbaum's administration and in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, it is that in Mexico we cannot yet presume that conditions for effective competition exist.

While the 2013-2014 telecommunications reform created the conditions for Mexicans to enjoy telecommunications services at better prices, the fact that in fixed and mobile broadband speeds, we are not only at the bottom among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but even worse, behind several Latin American countries, indicates that Mexicans are still paying a hidden price for not being able to enjoy broadband service with speeds comparable to those already enjoyed by residents of other regions of the continent.

The above is an unequivocal sign that conditions prevail in Mexico that prevent the sector from developing more efficiently. When this happens, it is simply because there is one agent in the market that hinders the performance of others, thus maintaining a tight control.

Therefore, it's surprising what we could almost consider crocodile tears from those who appeared before the Senate last Thursday to complain to the senators that the company they represent, or the one that pays them, has its hands tied—from their very particular perspective on what a competitive environment means. They used the first discussion to describe a poor, almost anemic economic agent who, due to a lack of support, cannot compete as he would like. Nothing could be further from the truth than this victim role.

Several operators competing with the Preponderant Economic Agent in the Telecommunications Sector (AEPT) have documented and reported to the IFT over the past 11 years that this agent repeatedly failed to comply with various specific obligations imposed on it to allow for the creation of conditions "as if the market operated under competitive conditions," as provided for by the Constitution and the legal framework. However, unfortunately for the market and for telecommunications service users in Mexico, the IFT imposed almost no sanctions, compared to the accumulation of cases opened against this operator.

This sends a discouraging message to those who want to truly compete in Mexico: when the economic agent that controls the majority of the telecommunications sector misbehaves, it is almost unlikely that it will be sanctioned and forced to correct its behavior, to the detriment of the Mexican people.

*The author is an economist.