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Among the countries that are considered part of Central America by the English Cable company , Mexico showed the highest costs per gigabyte (GB) of mobile internet connection. The study, conducted between August and September 2018 , which considers telephony packages offering 1 GB of mobile data , showed that Guatemala had the cheapest mobile broadband, with an average cost of USD$4.53 , while Mexicans spent an average of USD$7.38 per gigabyte of mobile connection.
Among Latin American countries , Mexico ranked second in most expensive mobile internet connection, topped only by Bolivia, which showed an average cost of 8.51 dollars.
According to the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) 63.1% of Mexicans had mobile phone services offering no more than 1 GB of internet connection as of 2018 while a 20.5% had between 1 and 3 GB and only 16.4% had more than 3 GB of mobile data.
So how much is 1 GB? With that amount of data, one could send 1.5 million WhatsApp messages; upload 4,000 pictures to social-networking sites such as Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter; send 10,000 emails; spend 310 minutes watching YouTube videos, or downloading 160 songs.
Between 20% and 40% of Mexico’s low-income population spends 5% of their monthly salary on mobile services
, according to a study on Taxes Applied to Mobile Connectivity in Latin America conducted by the GSMA , an organization that “represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide.”
However, data from the IFT revealed that mobile phones rates had dropped 43% between the second quarter of 2013 and the same period in 2018. So why is it still so expensive to access the Internet from a mobile phone?
Fernando Gutiérrez, head of the Humanities and Education Division at the Tec de Monterrey university
, State of Mexico campus, operators hold a captive market.
“There are numerous captive clients that are consuming more and more mobile data and that’s where they get you,” he stated.
As of 2017, Mexico ranked second in mobile service subscribers after Brazil. 72% of the Mexican population is expected to have access to mobile phone services by 2025 and 76% to have a smartphone device.
Furthermore, mobile Internet use is continuously growing. Latin Americans (including Mexicans) consumed 2.5 GB of mobile data a month in 2017. In 2020, the number is expected to rise to 6.8 GB and 15.4 GB in 2023.
In Latin America, the cost of acquiring a mobile phone and accessing 1 GB of mobile data a month represents more than 5% of resources available for all income groups, which stands in contrast with the 1% in Europe and North America.
Ironically, in Mexico, access to ICTs and the Internet is considered a constitutional right.
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