Recharges with less validity, this is how it impacts users

In the study, the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) details that the reduction in the days of validity focuses on recharges of 30, 50, 100, 150 and 500 pesos. In 2016, a 50 peso pass lasted 11 days and in 2023 only eight, which means a decrease of 27%.

In the case of the 100 peso recharge, the duration went from 23 to 20 days, a decrease of 13%; while that of 150 pesos went from 29 to 27 days, a decrease of 6.8%, and that of 500 pesos went from 50 to 30 days, which represents a decrease of 40%.

In 2023, it was only observed that the 30 peso recharges increased the days of validity, going from six to eight days in duration. In addition, the data pool increased up to 4,406%.

Data runs out fast

The decrease in the validity of recharges has been suffered. Users of the prepaid scheme are not satisfied with the duration of the airtime of their recharges, stating that even without using video or music platforms, the megabytes run out days before the end of the validity period stipulated by the companies, according to a survey carried out by Expansión.

Cynthia Rendón, a Telcel user, said she pays 100 pesos to her telephone line with the expectation that it will last at least 20 days. “Although I don’t watch videos and I don’t browse the internet and I only use the balance to send messages and call, I don’t get the megabytes they promise and the time a recharge should take,” explains the user.

Mextli Juárez, also a Telcel user, makes recharges of 30 and up to 100 pesos, but in both amounts she has noticed that they do not last the days that the company promises. “I know that the 30 peso recharges are minimal, but it has happened to me that they don’t even last a full day. And the 100 peso ones only last 15 days and with an intermittent signal,” he says.

Lorena Muñoz is another Telefónica prepaid consumer, who claims to recharge 50 pesos regularly, but in recent months she has detected that this prepaid rate previously lasted up to seven days and now only five, despite the fact that she has maintained her rate of payment. data consumption and downloads.

Among all the users consulted, those who are with AT&T are the ones who report the longest megabyte duration. Paola Álvarez said that the recharges she has made with the company of American origin “have lasted as long as they stipulate and I can confirm this because AT&T users can monitor data consumption and its validity from the company’s application,” she assured.

What does the industry say?

The IFT explained to Expansión that the days of validity are determined by the users themselves because the companies have tariff freedom, that is, freely establishing their price rates and days to access megabytes.

AT&T and Telefónica assured Expansión that the recharge data lasts as long as the validity stipulates. “If a user has 100 pesos in their package, it will be valid for 14 days, this means that they have 14 days to consume the service that the recharge provides.”

However, AT&T explained that if the user does not consume all of their data, it may accumulate, as long as they recharge during the recharge renewal period, that is, two days before the recharge period ends. While Telefónica pointed out that the browsing data that was not used will be added to the new subscription made by the user. Telcel did not comment on the matter.

Article 191 of the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law, section XVI, stipulates that “for prepaid mobile services, the unconsumed balance on the expiration date will be paid in the recharges that are carried out within the year following said date. ”.

For Jesús Romo, the reduction in recharge times would be associated with a strategy by telephone companies to avoid cannibalizing postpaid plans, since there are subscriptions that provide a data basket similar to a telephone rental. To this, he says, has also been added the competition generated by Virtual Mobile Operators (OMV) in the telephone market, forcing the large telephone companies to increase data capacity in recharges, but to balance the model of more megabytes per a modest price, the days of validity are reduced.

“Now there is a wide variety of recharges and even specialized ones for social networks, so operators must somehow find a way to compensate for this with the business,” he said.

What about rental plans?

Telecommunications companies in the last seven years have increased the megabytes for rental plans because it is what users demand the most to access this type of segment.

However, some subscribers who have postpaid plans agreed that their megabytes last as long as their contract stipulates, although others explained that, despite not using as much data, because most of the time they connect to their home WiFi or office, they have detected that their megabytes do not last the 30 days stipulated in the contract.

Eduardo Suárez, a Telcel customer, assured that the data on his telephone plan lasts the entire month and on several occasions he does not even finish his megabytes. “I am not sure if the data that I do not use during the month can be accumulated, but I have not had problems with my megabytes running out before the month,” he said.

AT&T and Telefónica assured this medium that in postpaid plans, data that is not consumed during the month is not creditable because every 30 days the benefits package that corresponds to the contracted plan is assigned.

But the story is different for Héctor López, another Telcel user, and Iván González, an AT&T subscriber, who assure that their data does not last the entire month. “The megabytes last less and I start to have data download problems a week or a little more before the end of the month, even though a few months ago I began to reduce my consumption of videos or social networks to see if So they reach me a month, but the result is the same,” says González.

They have been joined by several Telcel customers, who in recent days have reported through social networks that their mobile data does not last a month, despite the fact that they avoid consuming social networks or videos, the contents of which are the ones that require the most megabytes to be reproduced.

Expansión requested comments from Telcel on the issue, but did not issue a position. However, this medium reviewed the company’s official website the policy for the use and consumption of social networks, but the information does not specify the data consumption involved in this type of page so that users have a parameter that allows them to determine if Your megabyte expenditure corresponds to your browsing.

For Romo, a factor that could explain why postpaid users experience the early end of their megabytes is that they leave applications in the background, which ends up absorbing data without them realizing it. Added to the fact that most social networks entirely correspond to images and video and these contents are the ones that usually consume the largest amounts of data.