China and some Latin American countries don’t comply with WTO req...

market access opportunities to foreign carriers and lack of independent regulator. It said market entry in China was delayed by “extremely narrow” views of Ministry of Information Industry’s (MII) on what constituted value-added service for purpose of international value-added network service licensing. It said definition of foreign investors in China was “much more narrow” than list of value-added services in China’s own Telecom Regulation that applied to domestic-owned operators. “Without a change in MII interpretation, the net effect of current licensing criteria is to define foreign-invested value-added service operators out of competition,” AT&T said. It also said Chinese govt.’s top priority should be to finalize and adopt pending Telecom Law that would establish regulatory body, organizationally separate from govt. agencies “that are focused on developing the state-owned telecommunications industry.” AT&T said regulatory environment in China was discouraging carriers from entering market: “This will continue until foreign investor have a basis for confidence that China has a clear intention and a demonstrated plan to implement its WTO commitments.” AT&T said telecom market in Mexico also was harmed by “many barriers” to telecom competition. It said although Mexico acknowledged importance of open markets by making WTO commitments, it failed to implement them. It said Mexico failed to ensure availability of cost-oriented interconnection arrangements with its major supplier Telmex or to prevent anticompetitive practices by Telmex. AT&T said Mexico should eliminate its prohibition on foreign control of Mexican carriers authorized to own and operate basic telecom facilities. It expressed concern about termination rates in Argentina that it said, “greatly exceed” cost-oriented levels. AT&T said Telecom Argentina and Telefonica de Argentina notified correspondents last year that after Jan. 1 they would apply increased rate of $0.18 per min. for international calls terminating on mobile networks, which would be more than 100% increase over previous mobile termination rates. However, AT&T said, carriers proposed to continue to charge “much lower” rates for domestic-originated calls terminating on mobile networks. Verizon didn’t file comments, but its spokeswoman said it was concerned about Mexico compliance with telecom trade agreements. She said Verizon was “optimistic” about recent actions of Mexican Parliament on telecom issues and would be working with country to solve problems.