MEXICO CITY, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Mexico's cable television industry asked the country's antitrust watchdog on Monday to block tycoon Carlos Slim's $21 billion plan to combine his wireless and fixed line telephone operators.
The Canitech industry chamber, which includes leading cable operator Megacable (MEGACPO.MX) and companies owned by media giant Televisa (TLVACPO.MX), warned that allowing Slim to combine his assets would create a cartel and cripple competition in Mexico's telecommunications industry.
Slim's America Movil (AMXL.MX), which is Latin America's leading cellphone group, offered last week to acquire the holding company through which he controls dominant Mexican fixed-line operator Telmex (TELMEXL.MX) and regional company Telmex Internacional (TELINTL.MX).
America Movil's Telcel has around 70 percent of Mexico's cellphone market with Spain's Telefonica (TEF.MC) a distant No. 2, but once-frantic expansion in the country and across the region is tapering off.
Once Slim's companies are combined, America Movil will have clients with a total of 250 million connections, making it one of the world's largest telecom operators.
"It would be abhorrent for the Federal Competition Commission to permit ... Telmex and Telcel to formalize and increase what in practice are abuses of their status as dominant carriers in telecommunications," the chamber said in a statement.
Telmex is by far Mexico's largest fixed-line operator with more than 80 percent market share, but cable television companies have begun to grow in recent years by offering their own Internet and phone service. Mexican regulators have blocked Telmex from offering video services, which it says it needs to compete against Televisa.
By tying up his operators, Slim wants to offer customers bundled packages of fixed-line telephone, wireless, Internet and television.
Televisa and cable companies have said they are keen to offer similar packages and that they could bid for wireless frequencies in an upcoming government auction. (Reporting by Noel Randewich)
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