“Altán is already majority owned by the Mexican State and will be managed by the CFE. This company is responsible for ensuring that electricity reaches all homes and now it will have the purpose of providing internet service to all homes,” said the executive during his morning press conference.
Since 2022, CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para Todos, a subsidiary of CFE, has become Altán’s great ally to increase its network and achieve its coverage milestones. Both companies reached an agreement that stipulated that CFE TEIT would deploy towers, equipment and fiber optics – which would entail an investment of 30,000 million pesos – while Red Compartida would use that infrastructure so that its MVNOs could rent it.
Carlos Lerma, CEO of Altán, told this media outlet in an interview in November 2022 that the alliance between the two companies contemplated a sharing of income, that is, what is generated from leasing CFE Telecom’s towers and equipment by the MVNOs of the Red Compartida, will be shared between both companies. But now that CFE TEIT will be in charge of managing Altán, the agreement could change.
In a transparency request made by ExpansionCFE TEIT indicated that as of January 9, 2023, it had installed 4,177 towers. As of that date, the company had invested around 6,146 million pesos, which represented 98.6% of the budget it had allocated in 2022, or an amount of 6,227 million pesos.
Closing the digital gap will be with Sheinbaum
The president acknowledged that in the next two months, the time remaining in his administration, he will not achieve the goal of bringing connectivity services to all Mexicans, but he will ensure that at least nine out of ten Mexicans have the possibility of accessing telecommunications services.
In 2023, the number of users in Mexico with internet access reached 97 million Mexicans, which means that 18.8% of the population remains without access to connectivity services, according to data from the National Survey on the Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Homes (ENDUTIH).
“We are about to hand over the band to the president-elect. She will be in charge of making the entire internet communication system work,” AMLO said.
However, experts have stated that bringing internet to all corners of the country requires collaboration between the government and the private sector, due to the intense investments required to deploy infrastructure. But until now the transitional government has emphasized that Altán and CFE TEIT will be the protagonists of connectivity.
With information from Ana Luisa Gutierrez
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