If it were not for the historical context behind it, one could almost argue that Mexico has become a model of spectrum management. After deciding to temporarily assign multiple frequency bands to the country’s main telecom operators in order to meet the bandwidth demands expected during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Mexican government announced that the corresponding fee would receive a 100 percent discount. In other words, the temporary use of spectrum will be entirely free. If this is not flexibility, then it is difficult to know what flexibility actually looks like.
The management of the new Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT), operating under the umbrella of the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency (ATDT), appears to have picked up the baton left by the now-defunct IFT: facilitate spectrum use and improve the cost equation so telecom operators can deliver new services and generate new revenue streams.
The World Cup — and everything it represents in terms of telecommunications and connectivity required to guarantee transmissions to millions of viewers across globally distributed audiences — is becoming the ideal excuse to test new ideas. A sort of regulatory sandbox, but one taking place in an open, multi-layered environment with direct operational impact on real users. Within that framework, the government decided to grant free temporary access rights to the 600 MHz, 1.9 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.3 GHz to 3.6 GHz bands.
Conditions attached to the free access
However, the Mexican government imposed strict conditions in exchange for that benefit. Temporary spectrum use will only be allowed within a geographic radius extending between five and seven kilometers around each of the 10 World Cup venues located in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Those cities are expected to receive approximately 5.5 million visitors starting on June 11 next year.
Will it really be possible to enforce those limits precisely? The telecom industry knows very well that a radio signal never truly “ends” at an exact geographic boundary. Operators will have to make extremely careful adjustments to avoid unintentionally extending coverage into areas beyond the World Cup stadium zones, where the temporary spectrum discount no longer applies. In telecommunications, borders are rarely rigid.
A week ago, Telcel, AT&T and Altán gained access to that temporarily available — and now free — spectrum in order to guarantee service quality amid the surge in demand expected during the tournament. Yet this opportunity may also open the door to broader present and future possibilities.
For operators, the challenge will not simply be to use additional spectrum capacity, but also to experiment with new services around the venues, beyond merely providing direct connectivity or offering commercial promotions tied to the event.
An open-air regulatory sandbox
The World Cup will also become an opportunity for the regulator itself, which will be able to observe how telecommunications perform in bands that historically have not seen widespread use in Mexico. One band in particular — 600 MHz — could attract special attention, since authorities have spent nearly a decade attempting to clear and repurpose that frequency for telecom services.
The last major attempt came from the former IFT, which two years ago considered including the 600 MHz band in a future 5G auction alongside the 850 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands. That auction was later cancelled by the same regulator during Mexico’s governmental transition period, while the old regulatory structure was being dismantled to create the new framework first under the ATDT and later the CRT.
Could the 2026 World Cup become a sort of live regulatory sandbox that eventually enables new decisions and new movements within Mexico’s telecom market? We do not know yet. But it will certainly be a moment worth watching closely, not only because attention will focus on transmission quality, but also because it will be the first World Cup taking place amid accelerated adoption of generative artificial intelligence by consumers themselves. And, as always, brands will use the tournament as an opportunity to position themselves through new engagement strategies aimed directly at users.
Whatever the case, the final impact will ultimately fall on the networks.
