Peter Orne Broadband Wireless Communities Blog

Wireless Competition, Low-Cost Internet, Coming to Mexico City: Q&A with Sam Podolsky

On April 2nd, Mexico City Mayor Carlos Ebrard announced that the City had signed a deal with China’s ZTE Corp. to establish a broadband-wireless network to make Internet access faster and more affordable for its 8 million residents and to improve public safety through the deployment of 4,000 video surveillance cameras. At the Digital Cities Convention in Chicago this May, Sam Podolsky, President of the Mexico City Council of Competitiveness and Economic Development, will speak about the City’s plans at a Global Town Hall Meeting of major-city wireless project leaders and supporters.

W2i: A major benefit from the new broadband-wireless network could be to increase competition while improving access and speed for residents, students and businesses.

Sam Podolsky: Yes. As you know, we have a major service provider in Mexico, Telmex, which operates more than 90% of the Internet lines in the country. But there are many people who cannot afford broadband Internet access.

W2i: There is some competition, but it has not served to drive down prices.

SP: In the wireless area, there are four vendors: Iusacell which used to be Verizon; Televisa, through their cable company Cable@ccess; e-Go from Multivision; and Telmex’s Prodigy. For 500 Kbps on Prodigy, the price still runs about $25–27 per month. If you go above half a megabyte, it runs to $45 per month. We’re not against Telmex. We’re not against anyone. It’s just what the market is today.

W2i: Dial-up usage is still prevalent.

SP: Most users in Mexico City have dial-up, and even that can run to $23 per month, but I don’t think the speed goes higher than 128 or 150 Kbps. Cable TV is also available, but it has not been very successful because the pricing has been even higher than the Telmex solution. Cable@ccess charges on average about $60–65.

W2i: So you need to drive down cost while increasing speed.

SP: We expect to bring it down to $10 per month. At the same time, wireless bandwidth in Mexico doesn’t go higher than 1.5 Mbps, so we would like to see an increase in bandwidth in Mexico City of at least to 2–3 Mbps immediately, and within a year reaching 4–6 Mbps.

W2i: Generally speaking, what does the wireless access experience feel like there?

SP: There are few hotspots for free, and they’re located normally in international branded cafes. If you’re at the airport, you find that it’s impossible unless you have an account with the leading local carrier.

W2i: The City has thousands of local-government mobile workers, so the productivity opportunity from the new network could be enormous. Have you looked into this yet?

SP: We’re currently defining what the needs are, to find out exactly what technologies will be required. One of the greatest users of wireless will be the local government, and we’re looking at installing 4,000 security cameras around the city.

W2i: What’s the organizational structure behind your planning?

SP: We created a technical group, and then this coming Monday we should have a users’ group with representatives from government, universities, and so on, and they should begin working on what their needs are. The opportunity for public universities and the public-schooling system is tremendous, as well as for the public health and medical clinics, libraries, and government buildings.

W2i: About the agreement with ZTE, it is not technically a partnership.

SP: We have no partnership with ZTE. We have not closed any purchase agreement. We are in a buyers’ market at this time in Mexico City, not a sellers’ market.

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