Advanced Television

Mexico probes TV-phone deals

December 16, 2011

Mexico’s antitrust agency has started an investigation into agreements between phone carriers and TV programming providers, a sign that Grupo Televisa SAB’s bid to enter the wireless industry is facing more scrutiny.

Deals between fixed-line phone, wireless, Internet, broadcast and pay-TV providers could represent prohibited concentrations of market power, the antitrust agency said in the nation’s official gazette. It didn’t name any of the companies it would examine in the probe.

Televisa, the world’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster, is awaiting antitrust approval for a $1.6 billion deal to acquire 50 per cent of Grupo Iusacell SA, Mexico’s third-biggest wireless carrier. Televisa aims to add wireless service to its home-phone, cable-TV and Internet plans to compete against billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil SAB.

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