{"id":3830,"date":"2012-05-11T08:51:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T13:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=3830"},"modified":"2013-05-03T06:09:34","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T11:09:34","slug":"snapshot-caribbean-mobile-spend-update-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2012\/05\/snapshot-caribbean-mobile-spend-update-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot: Caribbean mobile\/cellular spend update 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a 2012 update to our mobile\/cellular spend Snapshot, to determine the extent to which persons\u2019 monthly spend on mobile\/cellular services have changed across the English-speaking Caribbean.<\/em><\/p>\n

In many recognised telecoms\/IT assessments that aim to provide an indication of competitiveness and\/or the likelihood of persons being able to afford certain services, price comparisons are frequently integral to the exercise. \u00a0For example, in our 2012 Snapshot of network readiness,<\/a> as conducted by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD, mobile cellular tariffs and fixed broadband Internet tariffs were two of the key measures used to gauge affordability under the Readiness Index.<\/p>\n

In May 2011<\/a>, we provided a snapshot of monthly spend for mobile\/cellular services based on pre-defined baskets of services, and provided a six-month update in November<\/a> of that year. In this post and one year later, we are again looking at the extent to which mobile\/cellular rates have changes across the English-speaking Caribbean, which in turn would affect the amount spent for those services per month.<\/p>\n

Approach<\/h3>\n

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

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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 (see Table 2). \u00a0Those rates were sourced primarily from the operators\u2019 websites, as at May 2012.<\/p>\n

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Table 2: List of mobile operators – May 2012 (Source: ICT Pulse)<\/p><\/div>\n

Prepaid plans readily provided the inputs for the calculations, unlike post-paid plans, where a number of services are often bundled together and offered at a flat rate. More importantly, the majority of mobile\/cellular customers across the region are prepaid subscribers, hence the impact of those rates on monthly spend by the average Caribbean customer might be better reflected.<\/p>\n

What are the May 2012 results?<\/h3>\n

For all baskets of usage, the lowest monthly spends would be experienced in Guyana, where the amounts ranged from USD\u00a05.35 per month for Low Volume (LV) users, USD\u00a013.80 per month for a Medium Volume (MV) users to USD\u00a031.30 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

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Figure 1: Monthly spend on mobile\/cellular service in select Caribbean countries as at May 2012 (Source: ICT Pulse)<\/p><\/div>\n

Some additional observations:<\/p>\n