Mobile Opportunities: Poverty and Telephony Access in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Case of Argentina
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Abstract
Original Title: Oportunidades Móviles: Pobreza y Acceso a la Telefonía en Amárica Latina y el Caribe. El caso de Argentina
This study belongs to the project Mobile Opportunities: Poverty and Telephony Access in Latin America and the Caribbean, which aims at understanding the strategies used by the poor in the LAC region to access telephony services. In addition, it seeks to identify the main barriers encountered both by the market to extend its frontiers and by a sophisticated use of telephony among low income groups. A questionnaire was submitted in person to 1,400 subjects from the lowest socio-economic strata (C3, D1, D2, and E), aged between 13 and 70. Subjects were selected from a probabilistic sample of low income households of the main metropolitan areas in Argentina.
In brief, mobile telephony has consolidated as the main communication and information tool among low income sectors. Therefore, it should be considered as such when designing policies for universal access to telecommunications and information services. The adoption of high level services represents an opportunity to deepen their economic impact, through initiatives for extending the market frontier to unattended sectors, as well as for leveraging this tool for providing services with a higher value-added. In his respect, evidence reveals a significant opportunity for the private sector, as well as an important role for the State in providing services that both accelerate the learning curve and mobilize market actors for the mobile platform.
Findings also reveal that the current pre-paid service tariffs still stand not only as an access barrier for the poor but also as an obstacle for usage diversification. A continuous innovation in services and trade models is needed from the part of operators, as well as the revision of the policies that still conceive mobile services as a complementary luxury service of "basic" fixed and public telephony services.
In addition, these results make a call for a revision of current policies for service universalization, and for encouraging the demand for new services. Evidence clearly shows that tariff control for fixed lines is not enough to help less-favoured urban households, and suggests the need for considering the rapid dissemination of mobile terminals and the continuing importance of access to public telephony when designing programs for access to communication and information services.
