The battle to control Mexican telecoms

Goings-on in mexican telecoms are akin to a telenovela. América Móvil, the empire owned by the country’s richest man, Carlos Slim, stars in every season. So it is with the latest instalment of the soap opera. Televisa, a heavyweight of Mexican broadcasting, at&t, an American telecoms group with big operations in the country, and Mexico’s chamber of telecommunications have asked the Federal Telecommunications Institute (ift), the industry regulator, to order that Telmex, the broadband and fixed-line subsidiary of América Móvil, be split into separate firms with two sets of shareholders. That, its rivals contend, would increase competition.