BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—As planned, the telephony liberalization process in Bolivia began on 28 November, including a multicarrier system for national and international long-distance calls. Through the process, Entel’s monopoly of the market has finally ended, as well as the regional cooperatives’ hold on local calls.
This will allow the teledensity, which is currently 7 percent for fixed telephony compared with 8 percent for cellular telephony, to increase and the three mobile operators, Entel, Telecel and Nuevatel, to offer long-distance services.
There are now seven long-distance operators, three of which have been offering services since Entel was privatized. Entel is now held 50 percent by Telecom Italia and 50 percent by the public. AES, the North American company in cooperation with the Telephony Cooperative of La Paz, and Teledata, the Santa Cruz Cooperative and North American company ITXC partnership, also offer long-distance service. During December, BoliviaTel, a consortium formed by the telephony cooperative of Cochabamba (Comteco) and the cooperatives of Oruro, Sucre, Potos
