Call waiting: Latin America on the line.

• Author: Goethals, Henry
• Position: Phone use

Latin Americans who really like to talk on the telephone would be advised to move to Europe, North America, Japan or even Portugal. Why? There's a much greater chance to use a telephone there than at home.

Costa Rica, with 13 telephones per 100 inhabitants, has the highest telephone-per-capita ratio in Latin America. But that is far below the 20-per-100 ratio of Portugal, the country with the lowest telephone density in the European Common Market -- not to mention Europe, North America or even Japan.

A look at the bigger picture shows that Latin America has almost 22 million telephones -- or a mere 5 percent of the 440 million Principal Lines (PLs) in use in the world today. Of those 440 million lines, 187 million (43 percent) are in Europe, 135 million (30 percent) are in North America and 46 million (10.6 percent) are in Japan.

A look at the state of telephone communications in Latin America today reveals some interesting statistics. The three largest countries of the area -- Brazil, Mexico and Argentina -- boast a total of 14, 8.5 and 3.7 million PLs, respectively. In Argentina, strikes and work stoppages have turned an obsolescent system into veritable chaos over the last five years; it takes between 10 and 20 years to get a line installed in that country.

Overwhelmingly, telephone technology in Latin America is imported, principal suppliers being the U.S.A.'s AT&T, Canada's Northern Telecom, Sweden's Ericsson, Japan's NEC, Germany's Siemens and French-based multinational Alcatel-Indetel. All of the foreign companies view Latin America as a market of vast potential which they are just beginning to tap.

High cost is cited as a prime factor in the inability of a majority of the Latin nations to purchase digital technology and satellite link-ups to date, despite the fact that telephone communications in the...