Sutel questioned Antel’s record balance and says that "does not match reality"

Antel closed 2021 with a net profit of US$ 247 millionwhich meant a 38% growth compared to the previous year when I had registered a gain of US$179 million. “Antel closed the year 2021 with the best economic results of at least the last 17 years”, he told El País his President Gabriel Gurmendez.

In turn, according to the balance of the state company, investments reached US$145 million, while in 2020 they had been US$126 million and in 2019 US$125 million. Looking ahead to this year’s budget execution, Gurméndez told El País that it will be about $176 million.

Gabriel Molina, president of Sutelsaid to The Observer that the guilddoes not share“talk about balance”historical” since it did not exist in the period 2020 – 2021 “no type of investment of the size of those that existed before”. In that sense, he exemplified with the submarine cable, the Antel data center, the optical fiber and even the Antel Arena, which were part of “a clear strategy that Antel carried forward”.

“It seems to us that saying that it is a historical record when the company’s strategy is not known does not match reality. Inaugurating 14 antennas does not seem to me to be an investment process as big as those seen in previous times, not only in the Frente Amplio governments but also in Colorado governments”, questioned Molina.

Molina also criticized the “lack of staff” and central government decisions that “have led to a real reduction in workers’ income” That “salary payment note”.

“You can’t say it was the biggest savings in history when there was no investment, no strategy and no real consideration of what it has to do with worker income and staff income.”, he explained.

Gabriel Molina, president of Sutel

Regarding personnel income, the president of Antel said that in 2021 the number of labor ties at Antel was reduced by 386, 5% of the company’s total staff (6,778 as of December 2021). In 2020 they had been reduced 240 vacancies.

Gurmendez explained that the reduction occurred in all the different types of employment relationships that the company has. “There were no incentivized withdrawals, it was people who retired, who were discharged due to death or other reasons,” he added.

However, the president of Antel pointed out that in the state company vacancies are not being filled. This responds to the rule adopted by the government that allows one vacancy to be filled for every three that are generated.

“During this period that has not happened but now we are facing the incorporation of personnel in some job profiles where we need people with new skills -because technological change requires it-; and also in other more operational places (looking for) people with the right age”, indicated Gurméndez.

Molina, when asked about the response given by the president of Antel to the proposition that there is no strategymaintained that “he gets very upset because he says that it is the opinion of the mayor of Montevideo (Carolina Cosse)” and added that “noor is repeating what he says (Cosse)” since the union It has been holding its position since the beginning of the Gurméndez administration.

“There is no clear strategy. doWhy is the application of the 5G network not implemented? What is Antel waiting for to do it if it can do it without any problem? As the president of Antel said, he is waiting for the multinationals to start doing it so that we can do it later. If Antel can do it, that would be a company strategy that is not being taken into account, is not being considered and is not being carried out”, questioned the union leader.

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Criticism of number portability

The last friday information leaked out that Antel had lost 800 clients in the first half of March due to number portability. This generated a dispute between opposition and government Facing the March 27 referendum to repeal the 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) among which is that of portability.

According data accessed by La Diaria and confirmed by El Observador with a source from the Communication Services Regulatory Unit (Ursec).), Antel lost 800 clients in the first half of March, Claro lost 260 and Movistar grew by 1,000 clients. For its part, in the last fortnight of February Antel achieved 200 new clients, Claro reached 50 and Movistar lost about 250.

Since the beginning of number portability, according to La Diario, Antel has some 1,550 new clients compared to Claro’s 130, while Movistar has a negative balance of 1,700 fewer clients.

In turn, Molina shared with The Observer a graph, supposedly with data from Ursec (the ruling party in the organization denies it), where you can see the performance of the different companies since number portability began to be applied.

According to Molina, Antel is “in a quite complicated process where Movistar has been growing more than Antel” and that is a reality that “worries a lot” because “Everything that affects Antel ends up being something that will affect the income of the country and also the Uruguayans.”.

Along these lines, he questioned “the numbers that the president of Antel is proposing” since “they do not coincide with the reality, which is quite another”. “What happens is that the numbers hide them and many times they do not give them so that the reality is not known. From here on March 27 they can pass any type of information because ultimately, we are playing a lot, “he added.

“Fact kills story: since number portability installed a scenario of greater competition, Antel grew by 18,463 clients in January and February. Among the ported Antel is the the only operator that until yesterday was gaining clients: 1,500 net in favorGurméndez replied on his Twitter account.

It was also replicated by the company’s vice president, Robert Bouvier.

According to Molina, one cannot “mappend when sweeping single numbers because it is too rushed”. When asked what is then the ideal term to start assess the effects of number portabilitymaintained that it is a year since “this is how evaluations are made in the field of telecommunications. What is called ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is applied to measure the behavior of the company”.

The government’s defense

Authorities from the Ursec ruling party and the National Directorate of Telecommunications (Dinatel) denied that the state telephone company Antel had lost 800 clients in the first half of March as a result of number portability.. In addition, they expressed their annoyance at the disinformation generated by interested actors who seek to influence the political campaign ahead of the referendum on March 27.

Before the publication of these datathe president of the Ursec, Mercedes Aramendiatold El Observador that “disinformation is being generated” and that from the organism “they do not know the source on the basis of which the disinformation was generated”.

For its part, the head of Dinatel, Guzmán Acosta y Laratold El Observador that the data published They are not correct and confirmed it both with Ursec and with the Database Administrator (ABD). “I categorically deny you. We don’t have a change in trends, it’s fake”, he assured.

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According to Acosta and Lara, some directors of the opposition in the different entities “they have given certain data throughout the process of number portability and until now they have always been wrong”. “Evidently there is a political intention on the issue that portability is one of the elements of the referendum“, Held.

When asked about the accurate data, the head of Dinatel maintained that it is not possible to provide them since “The companies themselves made the request to keep the data confidential because we do not want the information to be altered – and less so in a political campaign.”. “We’re not going to bust that now because of a false rumor from some opposition director.”, he pointed out.

Giving the data would be “a exception to the rule that was being handled and that we talked about to try not to interfere in the electoral processL,” he explained. And he added: “Yes. you see our statements we never gave exact figures, we did give trends but we never said what the ‘score’ was – speaking in soccer terms – of the companies. We did say that Antel has had a good activity”, said the director of Dinatel.