Introduction
For the first time in Mexico’s connectivity sector history, four women are leading state institutions that support digital infrastructure. Norma Solano Rodríguez heads the new Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones (CRT), Zaira Yvette Pérez Salinas is the Director General of Altán Redes, Elizabeth Sosa Hernández leads the Organismo Promotor de Inversión en Telecomunicaciones (Promtel), and Brenda Escobar Méndez directs CFE Telecom.
The Mexico Digital Summit 2025: A Strategic Alignment
Their collective presence at the Mexico Digital Summit 2025 symbolized a strategic alignment between regulation (CRT), wholesale telecommunications service offerings (Altán), public infrastructure deployment (CFE Telecom), and investment promotion (Promtel).
Shared Vision for Inclusive Connectivity
The four leaders share a vision that connectivity is an enabler of rights and a tool for social inclusion. Their common goal isn’t just to lay fiber, build towers, or activate base stations; it’s about ensuring affordable and quality access so that education, healthcare, and civic participation are no longer dependent on geographical or economic conditions.
Institutional Actions
- CRT (Norma Solano Rodríguez): Pushing for a regulatory framework to facilitate spectrum access, simplify municipal permits, and activate incentives (including up to 50% discount on spectrum rights for deployment in underserved areas) to accelerate coverage.
- Altán (Zaira Yvette Pérez Salinas): Strengthening their wholesale network, maintaining infrastructure-sharing agreements, and lowering wholesale prices to provide capacity for 160 virtual mobile operators already operating on their network.
- Promtel (Elizabeth Sosa Hernández): Catalyst for projects with development bank funding, developer technology discounts, and a program for small operators making their deployments sustainable.
- CFE Telecom (Brenda Escobar Méndez): Shifting their public deployment towards 50,000 target localities, tele-school and clinic access points, and increased infrastructure sharing with Altán.
Challenges and Opportunities
More than 13 million people lack connectivity, with around 126,000 localities and over 17,000 road segments lacking coverage. Altán reports a population territorial coverage exceeding 87% and is the sole 4G capacity provider in 44,000 localities. CFE Telecom aims to benefit 3.2 million people by extending coverage to tens of thousands of localities, targeting 85% 5G coverage by 2030 through a spectrum auction including small blocks for regional operators.
Synergy Among Institutions
The relationship between these four institutions is synergistic. CRT (Norma and other commissioners) aims to enable incentives and asymmetric rules to attract regional actors. Promtel (Elizabeth) seeks to translate these rules into fundable projects and support small operators. Zaira (Altán) already provides wholesale capacity and non-discrimination policies for specialized business niches. Brenda (CFE Telecom) contributes public coverage and critical infrastructure in areas where private profitability doesn’t reach.
Key Questions and Answers
- Sustainability: How will the financial sustainability of social projects promising connectivity for low-income populations be guaranteed?
- Measurement: What social metrics and quality standards will be used to measure the return on public investment?
- Bureaucracy: Digital single-window coordination among federal, state, and municipal levels is crucial but challenging.
- Support for Small Operators: Beyond subsidies, small operators need spectrum access (not just saturated free bands), technical training, and affordable supply chains.
- Transparency: Who will audit transparency in wholesale offers and sharing rules? How can we prevent social connectivity urgency from distorting competitive neutrality or creating unfair advantages?
- Technical and Financial Challenges: Altán faces a monumental technical and financial challenge to modernize networks for 5G while expanding rural coverage with challenging topographies in an investment-intensive environment requiring economies of scale.
The historic gathering of these four leaders at the open Mexico Digital Summit 2025 marks a turning point. Continuous dialogue, regular industry invitations, public participation spaces, coverage and quality data publication, international best practices adoption, and clear accountability mechanisms are essential. Transparency, shared data, and communication are the best allies.
