Guatemala Communication Profile 2012

Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband
Executive summary Guatemala is one of the poorer countries in Latin America. Its socioeconomic indicators are among the worst in the region. A powerful oligarchy has managed to resist taxation attempts, so that the state survives on extremely low tax revenues. This means that police, prosecutors, and law courts are under-funded, overworked, and often corrupt. Therefore, the environment can be a challenging one for foreign investors. On the other hand, Guatemala's telecom industry enjoys one of Latin America's most open regulatory frameworks. All telecom sectors, including local telephony, have been open to competition since 1996. Guatemalan law grants national treatment to all foreign investors in the telecom sector Despite fixed-line competition, Guatemala's fixed-line teledensity is only 9%. Compared with the rest of Latin America, this is no worse than could be expected given the country's extremely low GDP per capita. America M