On February 11, 2025, it was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, the Agreement by which the Plenary Session of the Federal Telecommunications Institute (“IFT”) modifies the Guidelines for the marketing of mobile services by virtual mobile operators (“OMVs”), which will come into force 60 (sixty) calendar days after the day of its publication.
In its explanatory statement, the IFT stated that end users of those MVNOs that have stopped operations and therefore the marketing of telecommunications services, either due to a scheduled cessation of operations or an abrupt interruption, are not always migrated in a timely manner to other service providers, putting the continuity of users' connectivity at risk and limiting their right to use telecommunications services, as there are no clear mechanisms to address this situation, such as ensuring that users have sufficient and timely information to exercise their right to number portability.
The IFT also stated that although the MVNO Guidelines had established various rules associated with the relationship between Wholesale Mobile Concessionaires and MVNOs for the provision of services by and/or through the latter, they did not establish what would apply in the event that an MVNO that stops providing services does not give timely notice to end users about the cessation of provision of the services contracted by them, nor what would happen to those end users who, due to the lack of sufficient information to exercise their rights, have not previously established a contractual relationship with another mobile telecommunications service provider, which generated uncertainty about the continuity of the connection of said users to public telecommunications networks.
In view of the above, it was considered necessary to establish additional obligations for both the MVNOs and the Wholesale Mobile Concessionaire aimed at safeguarding the rights of users, in order to guarantee that, in the event that the provision of telecommunications services by the MVNOs ceases, users have all the necessary information to exercise their right to number portability in a timely manner and thus safeguard access to their telecommunications services considered to be of general interest and thus guarantee their continuity.
These modifications established the actions necessary to implement the mechanism that allows users to provisionally maintain connectivity in public telecommunications networks for: (i) origination and termination of calls and/or short messages provided for in the Portability Rules; (ii) origination of calls to emergency numbers established in the Guidelines for Collaboration in Matters of Security and Justice; and (iii) allowing any communication with the user to provide information related to the number portability process and/or to address any type of user query related to their number.
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