Telcel in Mexico

The figures on this page come from Mexico’s telecoms regulator, the Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones (CRT), from Telcel’s own pages and from the press, each with its date.

How many lines does Telcel carry?

The CRT counts a mobile line as active when it carried at least one voice call, made or received, during the quarter. On that rule Mexico had 146,147,478 active lines in the fourth quarter of 2025, and 84,073,090 of them were Telcel’s: 57.53%. In the same quarter Telcel held 55.59% of the active mobile internet accesses. The company behind the brand is Radiomóvil Dipsa, which the CRT places in the América Móvil group. The CRT took over from the IFT in October 2025, and the old regulator’s website now stays online only as a historical archive.

4G in 2012, 5G in 2022

Telcel presented its LTE network in November 2012, with 30 zones live in nine cities, Tijuana, Hermosillo and Ciudad Juárez among them. At the time it expected LTE in 26 cities by the first quarter of 2013, about 65% of the population. Its 5G was presented on 22 February 2022 and opened to customers six days later in 18 cities, from Culiacán and Durango to León and Toluca.

That 5G runs on the 3.5 GHz band. On 9 February 2022 the IFT’s board let Telcel use the segment from 3,450 to 3,550 MHz for mobile service; until then it had been allowed only fixed wireless access there. In May 2026 Xataka México reported that Telcel had announced 5G in 125 cities during 2025.

How far does the signal reach?

The CRT builds its coverage report from the maps each operator must file, and counts people from the 2020 census. It gives two measures: guaranteed coverage, where the quality rules are met, and differentiated coverage, which takes in everything the operator reports. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Telcel’s 4G reached 86.7% of the population on the guaranteed measure and 94.4% on the differentiated one. Its 5G reached 34.5% and 44.1%.

State by state, guaranteed 4G covered 99.86% of people in Mexico City, 94.30% in Quintana Roo, 93.14% in Jalisco and 89.45% in Yucatán, but 66.35% in Oaxaca and 57.82% in Chiapas. Guaranteed 5G was highest in Quintana Roo, at 79.02%, against 36.77% in Mexico City and 42.50% in Jalisco.

eSIM on Telcel lines

Telcel’s eSIM page says eSIM is open to both its postpaid lines, called Plan de Renta, and its prepaid ones, called Amigo, with no activation fee. An iPhone can move an existing Telcel line onto eSIM through the phone’s own quick transfer, and other compatible phones can take a new eSIM line online or at a Telcel customer service centre. Telcel also sells a prepaid eSIM line for visitors on its own site.

Registering a Telcel line

The terms of that visitor line, as Telcel published them in August 2026, say it gives no service until it is registered in the buyer’s name. On Telcel’s registration portal, the buyer photographs a valid passport with the phone’s camera and passes a liveness check. There are three attempts; after that, the buyer has to call Telcel or go to one of its customer service centres.

Install the eSIMSwitch it on after landingNo connection