Nasty “Sonora Surprise”

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

This week, Mexico imposed a costly fee on calls from other countries. The new fee greatly impacts immigrant workers who wish to stay in contact with their families and friends at home in Mexico. Thanks to the new 14¢ per minute surcharge, or the “Sonora Surprise,” it will now cost two to three times as much to make an international call to a cell phone in Mexico and, in some areas, much more. For intance, to call Tijuana from neighboring San Diego using the company Telscape cost 1¢ per minute last week—now it’s 17¢ per minute.

Cofetel, Mexico’s equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has the ability to set rates, and has mandated the fee, under its “You call, you pay” initiative.

Incredibly, one of Cofetel’s commissioners held a press conference to claim that the “big winners” [link in Spanish] will be people in remote areas who receive mostly long-distance calls, even though the surcharges will cost overseas relatives more of the money they send home to help relatives in Mexico. The really big winner is telephone tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s third-richest man, whose phone companies control 94% of the landline and 80% of the cellular market in Mexico. The fee will chiefly line Helu's pockets—it does not go to the government or to Mexico’s ratepayers.

Mexico income tax policy already favors the super-rich and gouges the poor. Now it appears that Mexico has found another way to hit middle and lower-income families. With nativists in states like Colorado and Arizona proposing taxes on foreign remittances, immigrant workers find themselves being squeezed from both ends.

At least two companies, Verizon and Cingular, will give their customers an ajustment period with no fee. Verizon has announced it will absorb the new fee for three months while it notifies its customers. Cingular will put this message on customer bills during November:

Mexican Mobile carriers are imposing new costs to call their customers. Thus, effective 12/1/06, your calls to mobile numbers in Mexico will incur a new surcharge of $.17/min. You will see only one per-minute price on your bill for any calls where this surcharge applies. The rate for calling a Mexican Landline will remain unchanged. Visit www.cingular.com/mexico for more information. 

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