Mexico. The prices of communications in the country accumulated a decrease of 13.03% in the period between July 2015 and July 2016, according to the recent inflation report of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).
In fact, it was the only sector that has maintained a reduction in its prices compared to 11 sectors considered by inegi, which did register an increase. The National Consumer Price Index (INPC), annualized to July was 2.65 percent.
Telecommunications services, such as cellular telephony, fixed telephony and internet, are those that mainly integrate the INEGI Communications concept. Its downward behavior is consistent with the decline observed by these services after the constitutional reform in the field of telecommunications approved in the country in 2013.
Only last July, according to the report made public by INEGI, the mobile phone service in the country observed a decrease in its prices of 3.90 percent.
Last year, prices for telecommunications services fell 14.5% nationwide. The services whose rates fell the most were international long distance and mobile telephony. That year the charge of the national long distance was eliminated, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting (LFTR). This contributed to the fulfillment of the annual inflation target in Mexico in 2015, standing at 2.13 percent.
The IFT is expecting the effect that the authorization it gave to Teléfonos de México, S.A. de C.V. (Telmex) and Teléfonos del Noroeste, S.A. de C.V. (Telnor) will have on the communications sector to reduce 30% the rates of the "El que llama paga" service to its fixed telephony users as of the first of last August. The next approved reduction will begin on January 1, 2017 and will be 15%; and the third will begin on January 1, 2018 and will be of the same proportion.
With the entry into force of the rates authorized by the Institute, users will pay less for the calls they make from fixed lines to cell phones and will be able to count on better service offers.
The main beneficiaries of this reduction will be the more than three million users of the fixed service, residential and commercial, who do not have any package of voice service and Internet access, which include an unlimited number of minutes or minutes for the service The caller pays.
