The Plenary Session of the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) approved that Altán Redes extend the 92.2% coverage compliance course for January 24, 2028, instead of 2024 as initially planned, due to the liquidity problems faced by the company that led her to enter a commercial bankruptcy.
Last year, the company chaired by Salvador Álvarez asked the Federal Telecommunications Institute to modify the date it had to achieve the 92.2% goal it had in its concession, as there were material and economic impediments to fulfilling its commitments. In addition, the Telecommunications Investment Promotion Agency (Promtel), which leases the Altán spectrum, requested the extension of the aforementioned obligation in order to maintain uniformity, certainty and coherence between the coverage commitments of both concession titles.
As part of the coverage extension approval, the IFT asked Altán and Promtel to cover at least 70% of the aggregate population at the national level, based on the distribution of the population corresponding to the 2010 National Population and Housing Census, no later than November 30, 2022.
At the end of 2021, Altán Redes managed to connect five million users; however, the figure is below the objective that the company foresaw, since it estimated to cover 19 million people.
In the Altán Redes commercial bankruptcy application document, Salvador Álvarez recognized that the failure to meet the goal is due to the high costs of deploying infrastructure as well as operating it, and the business model with which the Red Compartida was designed.
The company is currently in the process of a commercial bankruptcy to restructure the debt of its 70 creditors, whose debt amounts to 17,000 million pesos (mdp).
In addition, Promtel demanded from the company the payment of approximately 1,114 million pesos for the breach of obligations. But as of January 13 of this year, the company in charge of deploying the Red Compartida had 1,223 million pesos and expects to receive an additional 924 million pesos in the next three months, which means a total of 2,147 million pesos to operate in the next three months.
However, Altán needs 4,972 million pesos to continue operating during the next three months of this year, which means that, even with the money injected into it, it would have a deficit of 2,825 million pesos, which also makes it unfeasible to pay the debt to Promtel.
Experts say that the company needs to modify its business model and not just a financial restructuring so that it can achieve its connectivity commitment, in addition to being financially viable.
