Cell phone service only link in rural Latin America
By Will Weissert
Associated Press
Posted on Sun, Mar. 03, 2002
siliconvalley.com
EL CABALLITO, Mexico - This sun-scorched collection of 18 brick and adobe
houses doesn't have street lights, a police station or a ZIP code. When locals
asked the phone giant Telmex to install a communal telephone, they were told to
come back in three years.
Then a cell phone salesman came along, offering home-phone service in the form
of a wall-mounted plastic contraption that looks like a cross between a 1980s car
phone and a military two-way radio.
It costs about $4.50 for 30 minutes of calls, more than a third of the average daily
pay in Mexico. But in this remote hamlet, shadowed by an active, 17,900-foot
volcano, there was no other choice.
``We were completely isolated. Now we can call the United States from our
kitchen,'' said homemaker Gelasia Oliveras, cradling a chicken in her arms in her
front yard.
Demand for mobile phones is exploding across Latin America, where for carriers it
often doesn't pay to deliver regular phone service to out-of-touch places.
With 83.4 million Latin Americans using cell phones, mobile use in the region
edged traditional phone lines for the first time last year, according to Pyramid
Research, based in Cambridge, Mass.
In Mexico, just 12 fixed lines serve every 100 people, fewer than most other Latin
American nations, said Gabriela Baez, a Pyramid analyst.
Wireless use grew 35 percent in Mexico last year, compared to a 9 percent
increase in fixed lines, the government says. Today, 19 million Mexicans, about 20
percent of the population, use mobile phones.
In Mexico's cities, having a cell phone or two is a luxury that's growing more
common. But for thousands who live in rural areas, wireless is the only option.
Located just over an hour from Mexico City's urban sprawl, some in this
corn-growing region -- where the restaurants serve fried deer or rabbit and little
else -- say they can't understand why traditional phone lines still haven't reached
them.
``If you want to talk on the phone you have to get a cellular phone,'' said José
Esotero, a carpenter who waited eight months for a home-phone line before finally
springing for a $100 Motorola flip-phone.
``The signal is great, but I wish I could get a phone at home to talk to my wife and
kids,'' he said.
Pyramid estimates that 90 percent of Mexico's cellular subscribers use prepaid
phone cards that let them get an older-model portable or wall-mounted cell phone
for free.
``Even if they don't have any time on their phones, they can still receive calls and
pay nothing,'' Baez said, adding that competition among three major wireless
providers is bringing down the cost of a bare-bones cellular phone.
But Gustavo Yazbak, the self-appointed justice of the peace of this hamlet 40
miles south of Mexico City, said he's tired of buying cards to use the cellular phone
mounted in his kitchen.
``Those cards are good for only two calls. It's robbery that it costs so much,''
Yazbak said. ``It used to be a luxury, but today telephones are absolutely
necessary.'' |
