Although a demanding undertaking, I think a clarification of the data/population in the various segments of user groups under the common “plans”, would be very helpful in providing visibility to these numbers. And consequently to this snapshot series on Cellular Affordability.

I would presume that there are more users in the “plans” basket than there are in the pay-as-you-use. If this is true, then the larger sample size would be more informative in this regard.

Kamutula,
There might be several reasons why mobile/cellular services is still expensive in the Caribbean – especially if subscribers are not purchasing one of the calling plans on offer. Reasons might include:

(i) the providers are trying to make the rates outside their calling plans less attractive
(ii) the providers must recover the deployment and operating costs of their network
(iii) due to the same population size, but difficult terrain of many Caribbean countries, operating costs are high and there are too few people to spread/share that cost
(iv) due to the pervasiveness of mobile/cellular service, especially the calling segment, which might be considered a premium service, the providers can seek to secure a reasonable return on their investment, based on how attached we are to our cellphones and having continuous access to that service.

However, please note that most Caribbean mobile/cellular service providers offer attractive prepaid calling plans, that include, for example, cheaper calling rates, and/or free on-network calls at night. For the purpose of comparison, it would be difficult to use the rates offered under plans, as the packages vary by provider and even by country. Hence, we focussed our review on the calling rates payable outside of the established plans.