Argentina [1]
The Argentine telephone system is modern following privatization in the 1990s, and more recently market deregulation. However many families do not have fixed telephones. The privatization brought a new numbering plan. The growth of the mobile telephone market since the beginning of the economic recovery has been impressive, with many people now preferring a comparatively cheap cellular phone to a fixed household service.
The domestic telephone trunk network is served by microwave radio relay and a domestic satellite system with 40 earth stations. It has a monthly traffic of 908,763,000 monthly local calls, 188,869,000 inter-urban calls, and 14,239,000 international calls (as of February 2006).
International communications employ satellite earth stations – 3 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean); two international gateways near Buenos Aires; Atlantis II submarine cable (1999). This system is largely replaced with a domestic fiber optic ring connecting the main cities (actually the main central offices). This link runs at 2.5 Gbit/s. From these head central offices, local calls are routed through 10 Gbit/s fiber optic links, or 3 × 155 Mbit/s microwave links. These links are spaced at about 30 km. Some of these links (the ones serving smaller towns) are spaced at 60 km and this makes communications unreliable in certain weather conditions.
According to a report released on 31 January 2006 by INDEC, mobile phone lines increased by 68.8% during 2005, with 11 million mobile phones sold, and now service three quarters of the population over 14 (28.5 million). A growing minority of users are children under 14. A private study conducted by Investigaciones Económicas Sectoriales (IES), covering January–October 2006, found a 51.2% growth compared to the same period of 2005, and projected 31 million mobile lines at the end of the year. Most of the phones (almost 90%) are imported from Brazil or Mexico.
In the 1990s the Argentine telephone system (which was formerly property of a state-owned company, ENTEL) was sold to two private corporations looking to invest in the local market: Telefónica, a telco from Spain, and Telecom Argentina, owned by France Télécom. The country was divided in two zones, within which one of the companies was the exclusive provider of the service (a state-sanctioned monopoly).
The service was then deregulated in several steps, first allowing the participation of other companies to provide international phone call services, then mobile services and finally the domestic service.
Telecom has a subsidiary Internet service provider, Arnet. Other ISPs, such as Flash (property of the ClarÃn group), hire the facilities of Telecom and Telefónica.
Several newcomer companies in the telephone market (2005) offer high-speed broadband access, Voice over IP and other services to a restricted market group (businesses and high-level residential users).
Fixed lines in use: 8,411,100 (February 2006)
Mobile (cellular phones): 36,000,000 (2007)
Public phones: 158,100 (February 2006)
Colombia [2]
Since being liberalized in 1991, the Colombian telecommunications sector has added new services, expanded coverage, improved efficiency, and lowered costs. The sector has had the second largest (after energy) investment in infrastructure (54 percent) since 1997. However, the economic downturn between 1999 and 2002 adversely affected telecommunications. During this period, Colombia’s telecommunications industry lost US$2 billion despite a profit of US$1 billion in local service.
In June 2003, the government liquidated the state-owned and heavily indebted National Telecommunications Company (Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones—Telecom) and replaced it with Colombia Telecomunicaciones (Colombia Telecom). The measure enabled the industry to expand rapidly, and in 2004 it constituted 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Telefónica of Spain acquired 50 percent plus one share of the company in 2006.
As a result of increasing competition, Colombia has a relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure that primarily serves larger towns and cities. Colombia’s telecommunication system includes access to 8 different international Submarine cable systems, INTELSAT, 11 domestic satellite Earth stations, and a nationwide microwave radio relay system.
The country’s teledensity (the density of telephone lines in a community) is relatively high for Latin America (17 percent in 2006). However, there is a steep imbalance between rural and urban areas, with some regions below 10 percent and the big cities exceeding 30 percent. Bogotá, MedellÃn, and Cali account for about 50 percent of telephone lines in use. By the end of 2005, the number of telephone main lines in use totaled 7,851,649. Colombia Telecom accounted for only about 31 percent of these lines; 27 other operators accounted for the rest.
Colombia’s mobile market is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country. In mid-2004 mobile telephones overtook fixed lines in service for the first time. By 2005 Colombia had the highest mobile phone density (90 percent) in Latin America, as compared with the region’s average density of 70 percent. The number of mobile telephone subscribers totaled an estimated 31 million in 2007, as compared to 21.8 million in 2005 and 6.8 million in 2001.
Mexico [3]
Communications in Mexico are regulated by the Secretariat of Communication and Transportation, a federal executive cabinet ministry. Founded on May 13, 1891 as the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works, the SCT is divided into three subsecretariats: the Subsecretariat of Infrastructure, the Subsecretariat of Communications and the Subsecretariat of Transportation.
Mexico’s communication services market is among the largest in Latin America, liberalized in the 1990s, with the landmark privatization of Teléfonos de México (Telmex) a previously state-owned monopoly. Since then, new operators have entered the market, but Telmex still remains the dominant player.
In general, the telecommunications industry is mostly dominated by Telmex. The company has diversified its operations by incorporating Internet service and mobile telephony. It has also expanded its operations to Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador and the United States.
Due Mexican diverse geography—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 almost three times that of landlines, with an estimated 57 million lines.
The telecommunications industry is regulated by the government through Cofetel (Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones).
[1] Based on work by Wikipedia user(s) Klamm, Jim.henderson, Tabletop, Nihiltres, Marianocecowski, Pablo-flores, MTSbot, Bellemichelle, RussBot, Rich Farmbrough, Daniel C, Marc Lacoste, Acntx, Bobblewik, Shenme, Warofdreams, Hjf, HoodedMan, SpiceMan, Mav, D6, Secretlondon, Olathe, Koyaanis Qatsi and Ellmist and Anonymous user(s) of Wikipedia. [2] Based on work by Wikipedia user(s) Sardanaphalus, SmackBot, Mangostar, Zero Gravity, Occur Curve, Jim.henderson, Shooter16101, JJGD, Hwonder, Pointono, Luigi30, Warofdreams, CalJW, K1Bond007, D6, Guanabot, Guanaco, Gtrmp and Cimon Avaro and Anonymous user(s) of Wikipedia. [3] Based on work by Wikipedia user(s) ClueBot, Dúnadan, The Transhumanist, Jctrabs, Sdf8yb9go, Stwalkerster, Joseph Solis in Australia, Hseldon10, Tellyaddict, AlexCovarrubias, Marc Lacoste, Lucia12, DanCBJMS, YurikBot, Pearle, Vizcarra, Martin villafuerte85, MartinVillafuerte85, Brim, D6, Guanabot, Looxix, Youssefsan and Koyaanis Qatsi and Anonymous user(s) of Wikipedia.Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.