Communications in Argentina
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Communications |
This article is about the various communications systems of Argentina.
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[edit] Telephone
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.
- Fixed lines in use: 8,411,100 (February 2006)
- Mobile (cellular phones): 36,000,000(2007)
- Public phones: 158,100 (February 2006)
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. [1] 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. [2]
[edit] Companies
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 Clarín 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).
[edit] Radio
- Radio broadcast stations:
- AM 260 (including 10 inactive stations)
- FM NA (probably more than 1,000 stations, mostly unlicensed)
- Shortwave: 6 stations (1998)
- Radio sets: 24.3 million (1997)
[edit] Television
- Television broadcast stations: 42 (plus 444 repeaters) (1997)
- Television sets: 7.95 million (1997)
[edit] Internet
The number of Internet users in the country has been estimated at 10 million (2005 est) and the number of internet hosts was approx. 1,230,000 at the end of 2005.
Besides monthly-paid Internet connections (either flat rate or with a number of free minutes), in Argentina there are also a number of Internet service providers that have commercial agreements with the telephone companies for charging a slightly higher communication rate to the user for that communication, though without any monthly fixed fee. Roughly, the number of residential computers that connect to Internet can be calculated as the sum of both services, which on December 2005 meant 2,222,819 units (1,303,222 clients plus 919,597 charged per communication).
The number of dial-up users decreased drastically during 2005, in favor of broadband Internet access; at the end of 2005 there were 794,614 fixed-line connections and only 508,608 dial-up users. Of these residential users, 47.1% were located in Buenos Aires city, 26.4% in Buenos Aires Province (including Gran Buenos Aires), 7.1% in Santa Fe Province, and 6.4% in Córdoba (source: INDEC, March 2006).
Among the internet access of companies and organizations, 192,279 connection contracts were valid at the end of 2005, of which only 59,179 where dial-up. Of those, 39.0% correspond to the city of Buenos Aires, 37.7% to the Buenos Aires Province, 4.7% to Santa Fe Province, 3.3% to Córdoba Province, and 6.2% to Patagonia.
The number of e-mail accounts at the end of 2005 was calculated around 3.75 million, with a monthly traffic of 653 million messages (sub-estimation, only partial information available).
Argentina's Internet top-level domain is .ar.
[edit] Broadband Internet access
ADSL first appeared in Argentina in 1998, named Speedy by Telefónica, a Spanish company. Fibertel, a cable provider, remains the most popular, but there are several DSL services, including:
- Speedy, by Telefónica
- Arnet, by Telecom
- Flash, by Ciudad Internet.
In 2004, Arnet announced new plans. Controversy ensued, as in small print it mentioned that it was capped to 4 GB monthly. This plans were never put in practice until late 2005, though they were modified from the original announcements. There are no longer any capped plans. They currently offer from 640/128 kbit/s download/upload to 5 Mbit/s / 256 kbit/s (the second highest download rate offered in the country after Fibertel's Fiber6M 6 Mbit/s / 256 kbit/s) for home users. The uncapped 5 Mbit/s plan costs 148 AP (Argentine Pesos), about US$ 48 at the current exchange rate, whereas the 2.5 Mbit/s /256 kbit/s plan costs 109 AP or US$ 35. Arnet has been slowly recovering its reputation, which was tarnished amongst connoisseurs due to their 2004 announcement. See: Arnet prices
Both Speedy and Flash have a declining user base, many opting to go the way of Fibertel. Their services are often mentioned to limit P2P download activity. The best connection both ISPs offer is 6 Mbit/s / 512 kbit/s.
The tendency has been towards lowering costs to the public, instead of making investments to offer higher speeds.
[edit] Internet Saturation Issues
Since 2007 Argentine ISPs have started selling beyond its capacity, thus causing Internet saturation, especially during peak hours. Some services are highly criticized, such as Arnet. [3]
[edit] Post
The format of a postal address in Argentina is as follows:
- Person's name
- Company name (if applicable)
- Street address
- Postal code City
(optionally) Province
For example:
- Marcelo A. Muñoz
- Telefónica de Argentina
- Defensa 390, Piso 5
- 1089 Capital Federal
There are no standard abbreviations for provinces' names, but the province name is optional and usually not needed if the postal code is correct. The format of the postal code was expanded in 1998 to include more specific information on location within cities; it now uses a letter that identifies the province, a four-digit number, and then three more letters (and slightly different numbers are used for different parts of a city, which was formerly done only in the case of Buenos Aires). See Argentine postal code for details.
[edit] References
This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.
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