 Due to Mexican diverse orography—the country is crossed by two high altitude mountain ranges extending from the Rocky Mountains—providing landline telephone service at remote mountainous areas is expensive, and penetration of line-phones per capita is low compared to other Latin American countries, with 20 million lines.Mobile telephony has the advantage of reaching all areas at a lower cost, due to reduced investments in required infrastructure, and the total number of mobile lines in Mexico is nearly five times that of landlines, with an estimated 95 million lines.The telecommunications industry is regulated by the government through the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT, "Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones").