On Monday July 14, 2014, the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Act and the Law for the Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State decrees were issued on the Mexican Official Gazette. Amending, supplementing and revoking various provisions in telecommunications and broadcasting matters, in relation to the so-called "Additional Laws on Telecommunications."

These Decrees shall enter into force on August 15th of the current year.

Some of the highlights of the decrees regarding the new Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Act and the Law for the Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State, are:

Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Act:

There will be no long distance charges for national telephone calls. Public telecommunications networks must interconnect directly or indirectly. The phone number transfer from one service provider to another won’t be charged to the end user or subscriber to ensure the continuity of telecommunication services where there is only one dealer operating in single locality.

In the Broadcasting section, it proposes the creation of an audience defender whose purpose will be to receive, document, process and follow up on comments, complaints, suggestions, requests or remarks from the audience.

The Federal Institute of Telecommunications shall determine the existence of prevailing economic agents in the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors, and impose the necessary measures to ensure free competition through asymmetric regulations. Anyone who has, directly or indirectly, up to 50% in the national participation in the provision of broadcasting and telecommunications services will be considered as a prevailing economic agent. Said percentage is measured either by the number of users, subscribers, audience, traffic on their networks or capacity utilization of the provider.

Concessions for social broadcasting is non profitable and targets community and indigenous broadcasting which can receive funding sources by selling advertising spaces to federal and public entities, these entities must allocate one percent of the amount destined to telecommunication services to social broadcasting. They can also receive money from selling products or editing services, audio recording or leasing studios.

Finally, the Secretary of State is responsible for the administration of the time the state spends on telecommunications and is empowered to order, authorize, monitor, classify, coordinate and / or sanction related aspects on broadcasting matters.

Law for the Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State

This law creates the Public Broadcasting System of the Mexican State, which aims to accomplish the following objectives:

• Promote awareness of human rights, freedoms and the diffusion of civic values.
• The ethical commitment to objective, accurate and diverse information, which should be fully adjusted to the professional independence criteria and the political, social and cultural pluralism in the country.
• Facilitate the political debate of the various ideological, political and cultural trends.
• Promote citizen participation through the exercise of the right to access public broadcasting media.
• Encourage the plurality of content in programming and institutional, social, cultural and sporting events, targeting all sectors of the audience. Focusing, as well, on those topics of public interest.
• Stimulate the diffusion of national cultural productions, particularly films.
• Support the social integration of minorities and social groups with specific needs.
• Promote the protection and safeguarding of equality between women and men, avoiding any discrimination among them.
• Endorse awareness of the arts, science, history and culture;
• Guarantee the conservation of audiovisual historical records available.
• Ensure the widest audience and the highest social and geographic continuity and coverage, with the commitment to offer quality, diversity, innovation and ethical demands.
• Promoting scientific and cultural knowledge, respect and safeguard the ecological values and the environmental protection.
• Preserve the children’s rights.