Both the Mexican and Argentine Governments are reconsidering the role of their relatively new telecoms regulators in improving connectivity amid different market forces
Mexican president proposes dissolving telecoms regulator
On 5 February 2024, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposed the dissolution of the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT), the Mexican telecoms regulator, along with the country’s competition authority and a number of other federal regulators. As part of a package of constitutional reforms, López Obrador announced the Government’s recommendation to return the functions of the dissolved regulators to central government departments as a cost saving measure, and having previously said they were “useless”. The work of the IFT would be returned to the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT), which acted as the regulator for telecoms prior to the formation of the IFT in 2013. Legislation that created the regulator also established asymmetric rules for incumbent América Móvil in an effort to promote competition and lower consumer prices. However, the IFT has been a consistent target for regulatory reform by López Obrador, recommending it be dissolved in 2020 and again in 2021. The regulator is also currently operating with only four of seven governing plenary members, given the Government’s failure to appoint replacement commissioners. In its response to the Government’s proposals, the IFT noted the importance of its role as an independent regulator in enforcing the relatively new ex-ante regime for competition regulation in both fixed and mobile markets. Its dissolution would also complicate Mexico’s trilateral trade agreement with the US and Canada, as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) requires that Mexico maintain an independent telecoms regulator.
The Government looks to make internet access a constitutional right
In the same set of constitutional reforms, President López Obrador also proposed the creation of a constitutional right to internet access for all Mexicans. Given the IFT’s current role in supporting the network rollout and addressing digital inequality, it is unclear what government body would oversee the enforcement of a new right to connectivity. According to IFT data, only approximately 70% of Mexicans were internet users as of 2021. Further, only about 25.5m Mexicans (20% of households) have any form of residential broadband services as of 2023. Some other countries, including France, Costa Rica and India, have adopted a version of a constitutional right to internet access, though these efforts have varied in their success in the absence of a robust universal service obligation. Given the forthcoming presidential election in Mexico and the rules that will prevent President López Obrador from seeking another term, the likelihood that a constitutional right to connectivity or a dissolution of the IFT materialises remains limited.
Argentina has also launched a review of its telecoms regulator
On 29 January 2024, the Argentine Government also officially launched a review of the Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENACOM), which was formed in 2016 to regulate telecoms, as well as the media and postal sectors. The 180-day audit of the regulator will be led by a team of external examiners, including a former ENACOM director, and overseen by the central government. The audit was described as an interim step in a necessary restructuring of the agency and further justified by the Government’s claim that the regulator has failed to support the timely deregulation of the telecoms sector, which could better provide for expanded access to connectivity across the country’s vast and challenging geography. Argentina’s President Javier Milei also expressed a similar urgency in deregulating communications markets, in particular the satellite internet market, in a December 2023 presidential decree. Given the importance of export industries, including mining and agriculture, in rural and mountainous regions of the country to the broader economy, a push for deregulation of satellite services is unsurprising.
