Telecom reform is already having an effect: SCT

Wednesday, 29 January 2014 
BY YVONNE REYES CAMPOS
The News

MEXICO CITY – A final proposal is now ready on the secondary legislation supplementing last year’s telecommunications reform, according to Communications and Transportation Secretariat (SCT) Director Gerardo Ruiz Esparza.

Ruiz Esparza said the laws would make changes to more than 300 articles of 11 laws being reformed.
Ruiz Esparza’s announcement was made at the plenary session of the federal deputies associated with the Green Party (PVEM) and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary (PRI), where he added that several different government agencies participated in preparing the draft of the legislation, which also received input from broadcasting companies and international bodies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

He went on to mention that reports have appeared about telecommunications companies selling off their assets in anticipation of the tougher antitrust regulations that are expected to be established by the secondary legislation.

“If some service providers begin to take legal measures so that they won’t be considered monopolies, then that should be considered as a success of the constitutional reform,” Ruiz Esparza said.

Other provisions of the legislation will include measures to protect consumers from misleading advertising and abusive service contracts, he said, adding that, “Measures must be established to create certainty among consumers about what they’re paying and what they’re receiving.”