It`s been barely a week since billionaire Carlos Slim put his ambitious plan on the table to combine his wireless and wireline service provider holdings Telcel and Telmex into one bigger operation, but Mexico`s cable companies aren`t going to stand for it.
Mexico`s cable industry group Camara Nacional de la Industria de Telecomunicaciones por Cable (CANITEC) has asked that the Comision Federal de Competencia (Cofeco), which has yet to approve Slim`s proposal, prevent the merger from going through because they believe that it could stifle competition in Mexico`s telecom market.
Currently, Slim`s Telmex has more than 80 percent of Mexico`s fixed-line market, while America Movil has a 70 percent market share.
"It would be abhorrent for Cofeco to permit... Telmex and Telcel to formalize and increase what in practice are abuses of their status as dominant carriers in telecommunications," CANITEC said in a statement.
Slim`s reasons for wanting to combine the units into one company are twofold: save an estimated $2 billion in capex costs and create a larger service provider that could offer everything from fixed line voice, wireless and video to counter their growing presence of competitive carriers such as Telefonica.
