Empresa Guatemalteca de Telecomunicaciones (Guatel) was established on 14 April 1971 by Decree 14-71 as a government entity with a monopoly on local, national, and international telecommunications services.
October 1998 the Government-owned Guatel phone company sold to a private company.
The sale took place at a closed auction. There was only one bidder, LUCA. There was talk about the sale being to a person/company with ties to the newly-elected president. The phone company name was changed to Telgua.
The agreed upon price was never fully paid. LUCA bid $700 million for 95% of Telgua with an up-front payment of only $100 million payable at closing. The Government forgave $100M and provided LUCA with subordinated financing for the $500 million balance of the purchase price
In May of 2000 Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo (the
next president from the opposing party) announced that the government was
considering reversing the privatization due to vague complaints of inadequate
transparency and too low of a sale price.
At the time of the auction, one of the U.S. Bells looked at the current infrastructure
in Guatemala and said that they would have to start from scratch if they were
to operate effectively in Guatemala.
Privatization:(2)
Private competition is allowed in cellular, paging, cable television and satellite
services as well as the long-distance market. Guatemala began a widespread
privatization movement after 1996 (following the peace accords) and privatized
electrical, seaports, commercial airports (2), railroads (author knows of
only one railroad in Guatemala), postal and telegraph services, and tourism
services (INGUAT).
Tele-density:(3)
Stats: Population 13,314,079 July 2002
Total # of telephones 712,625 (June 2002)
Telephone lines per 1000 people: 53.52
Total # of cellular phones 935,488 (September 2000)
Cellular phones per 1000 people : 70.26
Tele-distribution: (4)
Due to the unequal distribution of wealth and infrastructure 69% of all telephones are in Guatemala City with about 2 million people.
95% of all telephones are provided by Telegua.
Cellular networks:
As of 10/11/02 there were four cellular phone networks in Guatemala: Bell
South, Telefonica, PCS Digital (Sercom), Comcel. Bell South is the most recent
entrant, yet was confident of near exponential growth in the near future for
Guatemala.
The following graph shows the relative distribution of cell phone users.
Source: SIT: Superintendencia Del Telecomunicationes Guatemala
Due to the lack of infrastructure, use of cellular phones has grown much faster than land-based access lines. This trend can already be seen by the fact that more people own cellular phones than land lines.
The following graph shows the rapid growth in the number of phone lines since the sale of Guatel in 1996 when the phone system was privatized. Although the privatization occurred, Telgua maintained a strangle hold on the systems within Guatemala.
(Fijos = Fixed lines, Moviles= Mobile phones, Total = Total
# of lines)
Source: SIT: Superintendencia Del Telecomunicationes Guatemala
Long Distance Competition:(4)
The greatest effect of the privatization is in opening the
long distance market to new participants. Telgua, though still the majority
supplier of long distance, has slightly more than half the market. Though
still high, this is a tremendous change.
The following chart shows distribution of incoming and outgoing calls divided
by the long distance service used. (Based on 421+ million minutes total)
(4)
Source: SIT: Superintendencia Del Telecomunicationes Guatemala
General statistics:(3)
Telephone system: general assessment: fairly modern network centered in the
city of Guatemala
domestic: NA
international: connected to Central American Microwave System; satellite earth
station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)
Radio broadcast stations: AM 130, FM 487, shortwave 15 (2000)
Radios: 835,000 (1997) ( per 1000: 62.72)
Television broadcast stations:
26 (plus 27 repeaters) (1997)
Televisions: 1.323 million (1997) (per 1000 : 99.37)