Communications in Argentina
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Template:Argentina main topics This article is about the various communications systems of Argentina.
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Telephone and Internet services
The Argentine telephone system is modern (following privatization in the 1990s, and more recently market deregulation). However many families do not have fixed telephones. The growth of the mobile telephone market since the beginning of the economic recovery has been impressive, with many people now preferring a comparatively cheap cellular phone to a fixed household service.
- Fixed lines in use: 8,250,400 (2004)
- Mobile (cellular phones): 8,542,000 (2004)
- Public phones: 110,000
The domestic telephone trunk network is served by microwave radio relay and a domestic satellite system with 40 earth stations. International communications employ satellite earth stations - 3 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean); two international gateways near Buenos Aires; Atlantis II submarine cable (1999).
Companies
In the 1990s the Argentine telephone system (which was formerly property of a state-owned company, ENTEL) was sold to two private corporations looking to invest in the local market: Telefónica, a telco from Spain, and Telecom, from France. The country was divided in two zones, within which one of the companies was the exclusive provider of the service (a state-sanctioned monopoly).
The service was then deregulated in several steps, first allowing the participation of other companies to provide international phone call services, then mobile services and finally the domestic service.
Telecom has a subsidiary Internet service provider, Arnet (http://www.arnet.com.ar/). Other ISPs, such as Flash (http://www.flash.com.ar/) (property of the [Clarín group (http://www.grupoclarim.com.ar)]), hire the facilities of Telecom and Telefónica.
Several newcomer companies in the telephone market (2005) offer high-speed broadband access, Voice over IP and other services to a restricted market group (businesses and high-level residential users).
TV, radio, Internet
- Radio broadcast stations:
- AM 260 (including 10 inactive stations)
- FM NA (probably more than 1,000 stations, mostly unlicensed)
- Shortwave: 6 stations (1998)
- Radios: 24.3 million (1997)
- Television broadcast stations: 42 (plus 444 repeaters) (1997)
- Television sets: 7.95 million (1997)
- Country code: AR
Post
The format of a postal address in Argentina is as follows:
- Person's name
- Company name
- Street address
- Postcode - City - (optionally) Province
For example:
- Marcelo A. Muñoz
- Telefónica de Argentina
- Defensa 390, Piso 5
- 1089 - Capital Federal
There are no standard abbreviations for provinces' names, but the province name is optional and usually not needed if the postal code is correct. The format of the postal code has recently been expanded to include more specific information on location within cities; it now uses a letter that identifies the province, a four-digit number, and then three more letters (and slightly different numbers are used for different parts of a city, which was formerly done only in the case of Buenos Aires). For example, instead of 2000 (Rosario, province of Santa Fe), a postal code can be S2007AKT.
References
This article incorporates information from The World Factbook, which is in the public domain.