General

The Argentine telephone system is modern following privatisation in the 1990s, and more recently market deregulation. However many families do not have fixed telephones. The privatisation brought a new numbering plan. 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.

The domestic telephone trunk network is served by microwave radio relay and a domestic satellite system with 40 earth stations. It has a monthly traffic of 908,763,000 monthly local calls, 188,869,000 inter-urban calls, and 14,239,000 international calls (as of February 2006).

International communications employ satellite earth stations - 3 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean); two international gateways near Buenos Aires; Atlantis II submarine cable (1999). This system is largely replaced with a domestic fiber optic ring connecting the main cities (actually the main central offices). This link runs at 2.5 Gbit/s. From these head central offices, local calls are routed through 10 Gbit/s fiber optic links, or 3 × 155 Mbit/s microwave links.

These links are spaced at about 30 km. Some of these links (the ones serving smaller towns) are spaced at 60 km and this makes communications unreliable in certain weather conditions.

According to a report released on 31 January 2006 by INDEC, mobile phone lines increased by 68.8% during 2005, with 11 million mobile phones sold, and now service three quarters of the population over 14 (28.5 million). A growing minority of users are children under 14. [1] A private study conducted by Investigaciones Económicas Sectoriales (IES), covering January–October 2006, found a 51.2% growth compared to the same period of 2005, and projected 31 million mobile lines at the end of the year. Most of the phones (almost 90%) are imported from Brazil or Mexico.

Argentina was a pioneering nation in radio broadcasting. At 9 pm on August 27, 1920, Sociedad Radio Argentina became the world's first radio station and was the only one in the country until 1922, when Radio Cultura went on the air. By 1925, there were twelve stations in Buenos Aires and ten in other cities. The 1930s were the "golden age" of radio in Argentina, with live variety, news, soap opera and sport shows.

At present there are more than 1,500 radio stations licensed in Argentina; 260 are AM broadcasting and 1150 FM broadcasting. Radio remains an important medium in Argentina. Music and youth variety programs dominate FM formats; news, debate, and sports are AM radio's primary broadcasts. Amateur radio is widespread in the country. Radio still serves a vital service of information, entertainment and even life saving in the most remote communities.

The Argentine television industry is large and diverse, widely viewed in Latin America, and its productions seen around the world. Many local programs are broadcast by networks in other countries, and others have their rights purchased by foreign producers for adaptations in their own markets. Argentina has five major networks. All provincial capitals and other large cities have at least one local station. Argentina boasts the highest penetration of cable and satellite television in Latin America, similar to percentages in North America. Many cable networks operate from Argentina and serve the Spanish-speaking world, including Utilísima Satelital, TyC Sports, Fox Sports en Español (with the United States and México), MTV Argentina, Cosmopolitan TV, and the news network Todo Noticias.

The number of internet users in the country has been estimated at 10 million (2005 est) and the number of internet hosts was aproximately 1,230,000 at the end of 2005.