The telecommunications sector in Mexico climbed 11 percent during the third quarter and 11.9 percent in the first nine months of 2010, the Telecommunications Sector Production Index (ITEL) shows. The mobile customer base in Mexico rose by 8.8 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, to 88.7 million users, equalling around 81.9 lines per 100 inhabitants, according to the report by Mexican regulator Cofetel. The fixed telephony segment dropped by 5.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter. Mexico had around 19.55 million lines at end-September. Fixed telephony penetration stood at 18 lines per 100 inhabitants. National long-distance traffic, measured in minutes, decreased by 3.7 percent during the quarter, while international long-distance traffic slightly increased by 0.1 in the quarter on incoming network traffic. At the same time, international long-distance traffic for outgoing calls increased by 22.2 percent in the quarter. The cable TV subscriber base grew by 6.6 percent in the quarter, to 5.30 million total users at the end of September, and the number of DTH users jumped by nearly 91.6 percent, to 3.8 million subscribers. The number of MMDS users fell by 36.7 percent in the period, to 358,000 customers at end-September. The paging user base went down by 38.8 percent during the period, to 15,363 users at the end of September. The telephone services price index fell by 0.6 percent in the period in real terms over the same period of 2009.
