The Congress of Mexico City (CDMX) is reviewing a project that seeks to remove the telecommunications aerial wiring infrastructure -telephony, pay television and internet- and place it underground, with the aim of mitigating accident risks, as well as improving the environment urban.
The initiative, proposed by the deputy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Tania Nanette Larios Pérez, seeks to reform the Organic Law of Mayors so that the works are carried out by local authorities. Each city hall would be in charge of designing, implementing and managing the underground infrastructure.
According to the project, public service operators and telecommunications service concessionaires could use the infrastructure of a passive-underground nature, in exchange for a consideration to the government and the elimination of aerial wiring and poles for the distribution of the service.
“This model allows for the efficient and massive deployment of digital services in certain geographical areas -thus capitalizing on the existing infrastructure-, in addition to minimizing the investment and risk that telecommunications companies must carry out”, details the proposal of the PRI deputies .
But the telecommunications companies see some weak points in the initiative.
Enrique Yamuni, president of the National Chamber of the Electronic, Telecommunications and Information Technology Industry (Canieti), assured that burying the cables of the connectivity companies will be costly and the one who will be affected will be the user, since he is the one who will end up paying this type of initiatives.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about and they don’t know how expensive that is going to be. The user will have to pay that change. We are one of the countries with the lowest Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and yet it costs the same to build a network here as in the United States,” warned Yamuni, who is also the CEO of Megacable.
On August 3, representatives of Canieti, the National Telecommunications Association (ANATEL), the Mexican Internet Association (AIMX), as well as AT&T, Telcel, Altán Redes and Telefónica, held a meeting with IFT staff to deal with the issue of legislation for the removal, installation and burial of infrastructure.
The Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) said in a forum with the media that it had approached the Congress of Mexico City to look for alternatives for the reorganization of wiring, because the proposal of the deputy Larios Pérez practically implies that the operators of telecommunications have to weave new networks in the city.
Javier Juárez Mojica, interim president of the telecommunications regulatory body, commented that according to estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), carrying out civil works such as burying cables can represent up to 68% of the total cost of an already installed network.
“The organization of wiring or burial must be a long-term project and must be done in a planned and orderly manner because burying cables is equivalent to building new networks in the city and those investments (which will involve burying networks) could be flowing to another side,” said Juárez Mojica in an interview with the media on September 13.
This is not the first time that Mexico has sought to reorder the wiring of poles. In 2020, a proposal for a law was presented to remove the air infrastructure and use the subsoil of Mexico City “to improve the conditions of services and guarantee greater security, mitigating the existing dangers to which citizens are exposed,” says the Project. There were even fines if companies ignored the provisions.
The new initiative ensures that “developing neutral networks is essential when planning the construction of smart or sustainable cities for the coming years.”
