The telecommunications industry has become the backbone for development, innovation and the digital economy. Despite this, operators in Mexico and Latin America face challenges that call into question their future sustainability.
The current model does not work for the future for the telecommunications sector, we have already seen the growth in demand for network capabilities, investment needs and, at the same time, prices in the market will not rise by a percentage. sufficient to cover the cost of the investments that are needed,” explained the general director of AT&T Mexico, Mónica Aspe.
Data from the GSMA indicate that monthly mobile data traffic per connection in Latin America will increase from 7 Gigabytes in 2023 to 32 Gigabytes in 2030, while industry investments should be close to 109 billion dollars by 2030.
By participating in the M360 LATAM and the 11th Latin American Congress on Digital Transformation, Aspe considered that the network financing model must change.
Camilo Aya Caro, president and CEO of Telefónica Movistar México, agreed with this vision because several operators in the region have had to finance themselves through debt bonds in the markets.
There is a risk that future cash flows will not be sustainable to meet and, in that sense, that the financial market will dry up even more, since today we have very high rates,” he said.
Given this, he considered that several measures can be taken to change the operators’ model, one of them being the spectrum, since in Mexico and Latin America the cost of this is very high.
Aspe added that this is a very important barrier especially in Mexico because the high price is being reflected in deserted tenders or that operators are returning it.
Today, in absolute terms, the government collects less than what it collected for spectrum a few years ago. Because? Because it’s so expensive that we don’t buy it. Do we want spectrum? Of course. Are we going to buy spectrum under current conditions? No, we have been very public about it,” he added.
This scenario has caused authorities to decide to auction very small parts of the spectrum, however, this can generate technical problems and new opportunities in areas such as industrial applications are not taken advantage of.
I am also sure that there will be a change of administration that we will rethink, reconsider. Telecommunications in the world, business models have changed a lot and we have to rethink how we are doing it and why we are not advancing at the speed we would like,” she commented.
Officials such as Rogelio Jiménez Pons, Undersecretary of Transportation of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation, and Javier Juárez Mojica, Commissioner of the Federal Telecommunications Institute, agreed that attention should be paid to the cost of the spectrum.
While José Merino, representative of the elected government, does not believe that the cost of spectrum is the main impediment to the deployment and provision of services.
On the other hand, Daniel Hajj, CEO of América Móvil, added that the telecommunications industry also requires Fair Share, that is, the fair contribution to the deployment and maintenance of networks.
Currently, a small number of large companies generate most of the traffic. They have great profitability and are unequal conditions. All participants in the digital ecosystem must contribute,” he recommended.
Aya Caro also commented that the regulator needs to prioritize a strong, sustainable telecommunications ecosystem with the capacity to invest.
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2024-06-06 11:51:16