The `New York Times'' Mexican Billionaire Connection Revisited: Part 13

New York Times Owner Slim’s TracFone Connection

The May 10, 2013 Forbes magazine article also observed that New York Times Owner Slim’s TracFone Wireless Inc. mobile phone service firm—the fifth largest in the United States in 2009--was “the largest recipient under the U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s Lifeline program, taking in $451.7 million, or 28%, of payments in 2011, the last year for which records are available” and “has four million TracFone customers participating in the government phone assistance Lifeline program.”

An Oct. 7, 2013 Two Countries One Voice press release also noted that “on July 11, 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission fined New York Times Owner Slim’s TracFone $24 million and settled a battle that has drawn out in both the courts and before the California Public Utilities Commission surrounding the pay-as-you-go mobile provider’s failure to pay fees and surcharges that fund programs for the deaf and poor.” The same press release also observed that “in May 2013, Mexico’s Congress: finally “overwhelmingly passed a far reaching telecommunications reform bill designed to improve competition in Mexico’s phone industry, which is controlled by Carlos Slim,” but that the Two Countries One Voice activist group “will continue to be the voices for the voiceless, giving prominence to the plight of the poor, who are impacted by Slim’s practices.”.

(end of part 13)