The price increase in telephone plans will continue and there will be no IFT to defend you

Karen Gómez is a Telcel user who has reported on her social networks that her mobile phone plan has a monthly cost of 500 pesos, but in the last three months she has had to pay 3,500 pesos, without the company offering her further details of price increases.

“They used to notify you that you were about to finish your data, but they no longer do that. I have gone to Customer Service Centers but to no avail, and instead they offer you new plans. I have had to pay the price increases. Now I am considering changing companies,” says the user.

The case of Karen Gómez is not isolated. Various consumers have published similar situations with the same company and even with operators such as AT&T, who also report an early termination of their megabytes in the recharge mode.

Telcel assured Expansión that it has not modified the policies of the plans it has for sale. While AT&T was not available to comment until the text was published.

Rolando Alamilla, market research manager for the consulting firm The Ciu, explained that increases in receipts for telephone plans may be associated with the terms and conditions of the contracts with the operators. Since the pandemic, companies have promoted unlimited monthly data packages in order to strengthen their subscriber base, but since it is the main asset, companies initially decided not to put a limit on GB for all social networks to retain their customers. clients, although this benefit was stipulated in the contract for certain platforms.

But now operators have begun to validate the fine print of contracts, meaning that only certain social networks will have unlimited data usage.

“The operators have their terms and conditions and they have always existed, but before they did not enforce them and now they do. There is nothing wrong with this (in terms of practices) because the user had already signed a contract stipulating those rules. Now we must review which platforms have unlimited status,” said the specialist.

The validation of the terms and conditions is due to the fact that operators have begun to deal with a saturation of their networks due to the issue of unlimited data and putting a ceiling on the download of megabytes or charging an extra will help decongest their traffic. infrastructure. But this new policy will also allow companies that deal with the profitability of the connectivity business to generate greater income.

Uncertainty in the sector

The changes that arise in telephone plans may be aggravated by the elimination of the telecommunications regulator, which was in charge of ensuring that connectivity companies respect the regulations that govern the sector and that they avoid practices that are detrimental to consumers such as contract policies.

Analysts consulted agreed that the disappearance of the IFT generates uncertainty among users, as they do not have clarity about what will happen with the surveillance that operators had to ensure quality and price increases, this despite the fact that there are still platforms such as Profeco. .

And until now there has been a lack of monitoring of connectivity service contracts to effectively determine where the problem and even service failures come from, says Jorge Moreno Loza, lawyer specialized in telecommunications and leader of the Expanzione law firm.

“Although the disappearance of the IFT has been approved, there is still a process to issue secondary laws and make its extinction official, so it is a sufficient period for it to continue serving the user and regulating the operators in the provision of services for not leave users unprotected,” said Moreno Loza.