Mexico. The Federal Institute of Telecommunications, IFT, updated the Telecommunications Information Bank (BIT) with the statistical indicators of the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors, with the figures corresponding to the end of the third quarter of 2019.
This data includes information on the economic landscape of regulated sectors, as well as disaggregated information on fixed and mobile telecommunications services. Some of the main results are as follows:
Mobile telecommunications services
As of the third quarter of 2019, 77.2% of data traffic was made through 4G technology, which allows higher download speeds, and 22.6% through 3G; while, in the same quarter of 2018, 76.0% of traffic was made through 4G and 32.6% by 3G networks.
As of September 2019, the number of mobile phone service lines had an annual growth of 3.4%, exceeding 121 million in September 2019. With this, it is estimated that there were 95.7 lines per 100 inhabitants nationwide. Likewise, minute traffic increased 3.9% year-on-year.
19 Mobile Virtual Operators (MVNOs) were registered in the country, which represent 1.5% of mobile telephone service and 2% of mobile internet service.
Fixed telecommunications services
As of September 2019, access to fixed internet service was 19.2 million, while in September 2018 there were 17.9 million accesses, representing an annual growth of 6.8%.
With this information, 55 accesses are estimated for every 100 households. However, there are significant differences between states, because while in Mexico City, Nuevo León and Querétaro there are 100, 82 and 81 accesses per 100 households, respectively; in Oaxaca, Tabasco and Chiapas there were 24, 24 and 19.
In the fixed internet service, the migration to better quality technologies continues. Access through fiber optics, which allows higher speeds, reached 4.6 million, having an annual increase of 24.6%. On the other hand, the accesses provided through DSL (copper pair cable) were 6.9 million and had an annual decrease of 3.1 percent.
With better technologies the connection speed increased considerably. In September 2019, operators reported 17.6 million accesses to the fixed internet service with speeds equal to or greater than 10 Mbps; while, in September 2018, 16.2 million accesses were reported with this speed. On the other hand, accesses of speeds less than 10 Mbps have decreased, while in September 2019 there were 1.4 million accesses, in September 2018 there were 1.7 million accesses.
At the end of the third quarter of 2019, fixed telephone service lines had a growth of 6.1% compared to September 2018, reaching 21.9 million.
Pay TV
In the restricted television service, the growth of accesses through terrestrial IPTV (optical fiber) stands out, since in September 2018 there were 726 thousand and by September 2019 there were about 998 thousand accesses with this technology, which represents an increase of 37.3%.
Economic overview of T&T
As of September 2019, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors was 504.4 billion pesos, representing an annual growth of 5.8%. According to this information, the GDP of the T&T represents 2.7% of the national GDP.
This information and other relevant data from the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors can be consulted and downloaded in the BIT https://bit.ift.org.mx
