The Federation’s Expenditure Budget for 2023 brings a pleasant and unexpected surprise for consumers of telecommunications services and, obviously, for business operators. The PPEF-2023 provides that there will be no inflationary update for the payment of the rights of the concessionaires of radio spectrum frequency bands in fiscal year 2023.
The provision gives a huge breather to telecommunications companies and will very probably be able to continue the downward trend and, against the grain of inflation, that they had been registering the rates in telecommunications services to end consumers. With such a provision, the relevance that the federal government’s objective of closing the digital divide in Mexico has acquired during the last year is clear.
The decision of the Ministry of Finance headed by Rogelio Ramírez de la O., to maintain the rights for the use, enjoyment and/or use of the radio spectrum at the same levels as in 2022, is unprecedented. That is, each year, the cost of the radio spectrum for operators was invariably updated with inflation.
In the Rich and Powerful column of last September 08 of the current year, entitled: Telecom: “He would have, there is”, I informed him that, according to a study by the GSMA Association – an organization of mobile operators, which brings together to 750 mobile phone operators and more than 400 related companies–, the cost of radio spectrum in Mexico is among the most expensive. In fact, it doubles the median for Latin America and could even triple.
Therefore, the decision not to update the radio spectrum with inflation for next year is great news for users of telecommunications services.
With it, the Federal Government recognizes that increasing the cost of the main input to offer services can generate additional pressure on service prices. Especially, at a time when inflation is about to reach double digits and those most affected have been the least favored households.
The government decided to partially abandon the collection engine and opted for a social connectivity objective that seeks to expand connectivity. This ensures that Mexicans can continue to exercise their constitutional right of access to telecommunications services.
The other pieces of the puzzle
On the puzzle board of the Telecoms, in addition to the radio spectrum, there are other key pieces for the expansion of coverage in the country: CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para todos, the telecommunications branch of the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) , and the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT). Regarding CFE Telecomunicaciones, the state company has promised that it will connect the financially non-viable areas.
Since its creation, it has registered a considerable increase in its budget. It went from one billion pesos in 2019 to 10.9 billion pesos by 2023.
This year there is a change in the direction of the Government’s plans for CFE Telecom: despite the fact that its budget continues to increase −granting it almost 5 billion additional pesos to what was assigned in 2022−, it is not considering or one peso for investment in infrastructure (last year 800 million pesos were assigned to this item).
Instead, practically the 10 billion pesos of CFE Telecom will go to the “Management of the corporate subsidiary companies”, which most likely means that they will be injected into Altán Redes, the wholesale telecommunications company where the Government has more 60% of the shares.
SICT also increased its budget by more than 50% compared to last year. The IFT intends to increase its budget by 7.7%, that is, it requested updating with the annual inflation rate.
Being an autonomous body, the IFT presents its budget proposal in the economic package and it is the task of Congress to decide whether to accept it or modify it.
From the presentation of the economic package, Congress has a couple of months to analyze the budget and vote on the proposal sent by the SHCP. Let’s hope they maintain SHCP’s intentions of not generating greater pressure on telecommunications prices. The beneficiaries will be the consumers or end users.
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