Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones

The Plenary of the IFT places the general guidelines project for Must Carry and Must Offer under public consultation

• This exercise makes the project and technical elements that sustain it transparent.
• The public consultation will be available on the Internet website of the IFT from November 20th and will conclude on December 19^th, 2013.
• The results will be considered for issuing the guidelines and a document with specifics will be published, derived from adjustments to the project.
• The Plenary unanimously decided to designate Georgina Santiago Gatica as head of the new Economic Competition Unit.

In extraordinary session, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones, IFT) Plenary unanimously resolved to place a general guidelines project under public consultation related to the application of the must carry and must offer schemes, for technical criteria conditions for the due application of the obligations provided by the Constitution for open and restricted television concessionaires in the matter of supply and broadcasting of broadcast signals. Must carry consists of the restricted obligation of television suppliers to transmit open television channels. In agreement with the Decree of Constitutional Reform in Telecommunications matters published in the Federal Official Gazette on June 11th 2013, such broadcasting of open signals through payment systems must be free and nondiscriminatory, within the same area of geographic coverage, in complete, simultaneous form and without modifications, including commercials and with the same quality of the original signal. This Decree establishes for the case of restricted via satellite television concessionaires, who will only have to forcefully transmit the broadcast signals of coverage in fifty percent or more of the national territory. Must offer consists of the obligation of open or broadcast television concessionaires to allow the suppliers of restricted television services to broadcast their signal, freely and nondiscriminatory, within the same zone of geographic coverage, in complete, simultaneous form and without modifications, including commercials and with the same quality of the signal that is broadcast. The obligations to freely offer and to relay the broadcast contents will lose their effect simultaneously when conditions of competition in the broadcasting and telecommunications markets exist. In agreement with the resolution emitted in the second extraordinary session of the IFT Plenary, the document “General guidelines pursuant to section I of the Eighth transitory Article of the Decree in which various dispositions of Articles 6, 7, 27, 28, 73, 78, 94 and 105 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, in the matter of telecommunications are reformed and added”. This exercise has the purpose of making transparent before society in general this project and the technical elements that sustain it, as well as that the Institute This exercise is intended to supplementing the project and its supporting technical elements transparent for the public in general, while the Institute receives in writing the comments, concrete opinions and proposals from interested parties on the content of the guidelines with which this independent regulating body will comply with the obligations and guarantee the rights pursuant to section I of transitory Eighth Article of the Decree. The public consultation will be available on the IFT Internet website: www.ift.org.mx from November 20th and will conclude on December 19th of the current year. Interested parties will be able to download the guidelines and send their commentaries, opinions and proposals electronically. IFT will consider the results of the public consultation for the issue of the guidelines and once it emits its resolution, it will publish a document addressing the comments, opinions and concrete proposals received, specifying in its case, which of them were adjustments and specifications to the referred guidelines. Appointment of the Economic Competition Unit head The IFT Plenary unanimously decided to designate Georgina Santiago Gatica as head of the new Economic Competition Unit (Unidad de Competencia Económica, UCE). On December the 1 st, 2013 Santiago Gatica will take on the position in this independent regulating body. This appointment is a result of the selection process the Institute called on October 30^th, 2013 for the head of the UCE. Georgina Santiago Gatica has an economics degree in Economy from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and a master in Economic studies at El Colegio de México. She also has 10 years professional experience in the extinct Federal Competition Commission where, among other positions, she held the Main directorate of Regulated Markets and the Main directorate of Investigations of Relative Monopolistic Practices. She currently acts as an adviser in economic competition matters for the Undersecretary's office of Competitiveness and Standardization in the Ministry of Economy.