As Mexico lauds telecom
reform, rural poor search for connection
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[October 27, 2016]
By Christine Murray
SANTA
CRUZ ITUNDUJIA, Mexico (Reuters) - Toddler Priscila Rubi Sanchez lived
in a remote Mexican hamlet with no fixed line or cell phone network, so
when a mouthful of corn partially blocked her throat late one night and
her parents could not call for help, she died.
Life is tough in Santa Cruz Itundujia in the mountains of Oaxaca state
and it is made even harder here and in other isolated towns throughout
Mexico's rugged interior by a lack of connectivity that complicates
everything from education to getting help in medical emergencies.
Tales abound among the municipality's more than 10,000 residents of
daily obstacles thrown up by having no phones. The woman who had to walk
miles to report that her husband had been shot; the car crash victims
who wait hours for assistance, the women who give birth before reaching
hospital.
In these remote indigenous hills, President Enrique Pena Nieto's
telecommunications reform, credited with slashing prices for many
Mexicans and boosting competition against billionaire Carlos Slim's
company America Movil, is coming up short.
"In an emergency situation, whether it is because of accidents or if
there is an emergency in the municipality, there is no way of
communicating," said Eric Cruz, 37, the mayor of the town nestled in the
Sierra Sur mountains, some six hours from Oaxaca's state capital.
"As a result, the number of deaths goes up."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/27/images/ads/current/christian_village_sda_031616.png)
Almost a third of Mexico's population is estimated to live with no
mobile subscription, according to global wireless industry body GSMA,
meaning Latin America's second largest economy has a lower percentage of
cell phone users than countries like Argentina, Uruguay and even
Nicaragua.
In the future, tech giants like Facebook <FB.O>, Alphabet Inc. <GOOGL.O>
and Elon Musk's SpaceX's use of drones, balloons or satellites to
connect remote corners of the world may benefit Mexico’s isolated
pueblos.
But for now places like Santa Cruz Itundujia survive using a rudimentary
radio network to reach far away communities, or makeshift and unstable
solutions like cheap cell signal repeaters. Outlying hamlets are without
even public phones to call the outside world.
Mexico's reform has undoubtedly done some good, such as creating special
licenses for small rural operators.
But a flagship coverage project, a tender to build a 4G wholesale mobile
network to be awarded later this year, has a minimum reach of just 85
percent, and recent budget cuts decimated a public Internet program.
"I don't think Mexico has ever designed a universal access program
seriously," said Judith Mariscal, director of the telecoms research
program at Mexico's CIDE university. "The reform was betting on the
wrong business model."
Mexico has the most unequal access to cellphone coverage in Latin
America, according to a recent World Bank report. The country does not
publish official numbers on the percentage of its population living in
areas with no, or limited, coverage.
America Movil, which is Mexico's largest cell network provider, says its
network covers almost 95 percent of the population. The government does
not publish audits of those figures.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/27/images/ads/current/stacy_sda_101816.png)
LIFE UNCONNECTED
It took 20-month-old Priscila Rubi Sanchez's parents more than two hours
to reach Santa Cruz Itundujia's clinic from their hamlet Iturbide when
she began to choke on her food one night in late September. She was
still partially breathing when they arrived in the town at midnight but
died some time after.
Health official Rocio Aparicio Garcia, 36, said the clinic didn't have
the equipment to remove the blockage, which had moved into the girl's
lungs, and with no earlier warning had no way of calling for help from a
larger town.
"The girl would have been saved if we had more equipment here, and more
communication," Garcia said.
Cruz, the local mayor, said he and his predecessors have tried to
convince Telefonica's <TEF.MC> Movistar and Slim's America Movil to
cover the town, but that efforts always fell apart.
So in 2014, the town spent about 380,000 pesos ($20,000) on a cellular
repeater, which amplifies the nearest America Movil signal from 30 km
away.
Its use is potentially illegal and the signal is unreliable, but there
are not many good options for towns in the area.
Cruz said that, without coverage, more people die from health
emergencies, and even daily administration of the town is harder.
"The federal government is more focused on where industry is, where
businesspeople are ... They should worry more about marginalized towns,"
Cruz said.
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![](../images/102716PICS/busine61.jpg)
A carpenter writes a text mesage using the community-run phone
network in Santa Maria Yaviche, in Oaxaca state, Mexico, September
26, 2016. Picture taken September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Jorge Luis Plata
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/27/images/ads/current/graue_preowned_102416.png)
A
government program called 'Connected Mexico' provides satellite-based Internet
in local schools, but several teachers said the signal is patchy and it takes
minutes to load a simple web page. Other schools have no access at all for
pupils.
"We don't even have a computer for them to work on," said Mitzi Puerto Jose, 36,
a primary school teacher in the town.
After school, kids in town hang out at a small cafe, paying a few pesos for
15-minute bursts of Internet on their phones or on clunky old computers.
As part of proposed budget cuts for 2017, Connected Mexico's funding was slashed
by more than 80 percent. Mexico's economic and fiscal outlook mean more
government help is unlikely any time soon.
The
wholesale network project is to be tendered this year but with no obligation to
extend coverage beyond 85 percent of the population, the government accepts that
some will be left behind.
"There's always going to be a percentage that is hard to get to at the margin,"
Telecommunications Undersecretary Monica Aspe said in an interview. "It's
something the market will tell us in the shared network tender, how far can
coverage go."
Some experts argue there are things the government and regulator should have
done, and could still.
"We should impose coverage obligations and subtract it from their payment for
spectrum," said Adriana Labardini, a commissioner at the Federal
Telecommunications Institute (IFT), Mexico's telecom regulator. "What the
finance ministry gets from spectrum ... never goes to subsidize
telecommunications."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/27/images/ads/current/richardson_lda_090916.png)
SMALLER ALTERNATIVES
On the other side of Oaxaca state, some small companies and non-profit groups
are not waiting.
In Santa Maria Yaviche, a town which sits above the clouds and is made up of
zig-zagging red mud roads, non-profit group Rhizomatica has set up a
community-run phone network.
Rhizomatica helped get a social concession for the network, a new figure under
the telecoms reform which permits the use of a small amount of spectrum for
free. It rents an existing Wi-Fi network to bring signal from Oaxaca city, the
state capital, into the mountains.
Users pay 30 pesos a month for unlimited voice and messaging within the town.
For long distance calling, including to the United States, they pay up to 1 peso
per minute.
But founder Peter Bloom said that getting to its 3,000 users has required a lot
of effort over several years.
The
telecoms reform is meant to open up both infrastructure and fiber networks owned
by America Movil and by state electricity firm CFE, but the details are still
being ironed out.
"There are some good ideas but its really not very clear whether those ideas,
when they get put into action, if they're going to benefit places like Yaviche,"
Bloom said.
Regulator IFT is overseeing the unbundling of America Movil's network, Labardini
said. America Movil did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Labardini said Rhizomatica's success is proof that if pushed, the larger
telecoms companies could work in poor, remote regions.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/27/images/ads/current/grieme_lda_farm_2015.png)
"How can it not be profitable for those who already have scale?" she said.
(Reporting by Christine Murray; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Kieran Murray)
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