President López Obrador announced today that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will provide internet service throughout Mexico through the creation of a new subsidiary.

“We have just created the company that will connect the entire country to the internet,” the president said at his morning press conference. “Today we will give you the name: it’s a subsidiary of the CFE. Why was this company placed under the CFE? Because this way, it will be able to use all of the CFE’s infrastructure, all of its lines. It will have all of the lines and fiber optic cables needed to get the entire country online.”

The president said the subsidiary has been approved as a non-profit service by the CFE board of directors.

Internet service will be delivered through the government’s new Integration Centers, federal facilities intended to deliver services such as social, health and education programs in rural areas. The government announced last week that 10,000 such centers would be installed throughout the country in an effort to provide services to the 200,000 communities in which fewer than 500 people live.

The centers will also house branches of the new Bank of Well-Being, a new institution that replaces Bansefi, the federal government savings bank.

The president said this morning that internet service will be delivered to the centers by the CFE through fiber optic cables and then on to residents through a wireless connection.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Forbes Mexico (sp)