{"id":16536,"date":"2013-05-03T07:32:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T12:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=16536"},"modified":"2014-06-04T08:58:25","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T13:58:25","slug":"snapshot-caribbean-mobilecellular-spend-update-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2013\/05\/snapshot-caribbean-mobilecellular-spend-update-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot: Caribbean mobile\/cellular spend update 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a 2013 update to our mobile\/cellular spend Snapshot, to determine the extent to which a person\u2019s monthly spend on mobile\/cellular services has changed across the English-speaking Caribbean.<\/em><\/p>\n

In May 2012, we provided a snapshot of the likely monthly spend for mobile\/cellular service based on pre-defined baskets of services, which updated our May 2011 assessment. In this post, we again examine\u00a0mobile\/cellular prices across the English-speaking Caribbean to determine the extent to which monthly spend has changed since our last review a year ago.<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/h3>\n

Calculation of the monthly spend for mobile\/cellular service in the region has been guided by the approach set out in the Revised OECD Telecommunications Price Comparison Methodology (2006)<\/a>.\u00a0 The methodology\u00a0specifies three service baskets, based on the volume of voice calls, text and multimedia messages as shown in Table 1.<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/a>

Table 1: Service baskets used in mobile spend calculations (Source: OECD)<\/p><\/div>\n

Our calculation of monthly spend across the Caribbean used the prepaid rates advertised by the two largest mobile\/cellular operators per country, where applicable, and single operators, where there is still a monopoly in the market. Table 2 lists the operators and countries included in our assessment. The rates used in our calculations were sourced from the operators\u2019 websites, as at 1\u00a0May 2013.<\/p>\n

\"List<\/a>

Table 2: Countries and mobile\/cellular operators included in 2013 snapshot (Source: ICT Pulse)<\/p><\/div>\n

Monthly spends were calculated in the local currency and then adjusted to United States Dollars (USD), using currency exchange rates as at 1 May 2013.<\/p>\n

2013 monthly spend results<\/h3>\n

For all baskets of usage, the lowest monthly spends, as of May 2013, would be experienced in Jamaica, where the amounts ranged from USD\u00a04.69 per month for Low Volume (LV) users, USD\u00a010.72 per month for a Medium Volume (MV) users, to USD\u00a022.93 per month for High Volume (HV) users. On the other hand, the highest monthly spend across all baskets was recorded in the Cayman Islands, where amounts ranged from USD\u00a023.23 to USD\u00a0107.08 per month.<\/p>\n

\"Figure<\/a>

Figure 1: Monthly spend on mobile\/cellular service in select Caribbean countries as at May 2013 (Source: ICT Pulse)<\/p><\/div>\n

Some additional observations:<\/p>\n