Last week in Monterrey, Mexico, we were at a cookout. Everyone at the table had a nice cellphone. There were two digital cameras on the table, uploading pics to a Dell Latitude laptop. Upstairs one of the teenagers was on the ‘net, chatting with friends via Instant Messenger. The house contained 5 or 6 computers of various ages, all connect via a home wireless network to the ‘net.
This was in Mexico.
Forget any notions you might have that Mexico isn’t sophisticated. Sure, there are lots of poor in the rural areas, but Monterrey is on the rise. The ‘net is connecting people everywhere. Global youth culture is web-enabled.
Prepare for the future. Learn a second language. Enjoy.
I used to live in Monterrey so it’s good to see tat they are getting on the ‘net more. I was there in 2003 and computers were running about 25% more expensive than in the States and the technology was a good 6-12 months old, too. We could get dial-up access, but the phone lines were dirty and some sites were blocked by our ISP. Did you see broadband access besides satellite?
Technology can be more expensive. Not sure about computers, but I saw a Wii in a shopping mall for over $400 US.
I didn’t notice any sites being blocked by our host’s ISP. The connection wasn’t exactly broadband by US standards, but not too slow either.
The technology price issues appears to be a problem also because pay rates are not equivalent to those in the US. Not sure the exact conversion, but I can tell you that a beginning engineer there makes maybe half of what one makes in the US — perhaps a little less. Not such a problem for local goods, but for imported technology it seems to be an issue.
As you’ll see in one of my prior posts, they are getting ready for a big 3 month conference — making some infrastructure improvements. But yeah, I suspect that the solution for them will be wireless broadband, rather than via phone lines. The infrastructure just probably isn’t good enough for full-on broadband.
That follows with some of what I have seen in Honduras. Even when technology was there, it was outrageously expensive by local standards. When I was in Mexico, I was teaching and had all of my expenses (housing, daily transportation, most of my groceries) paid for and had $14,000 in disposal income every year. Even with that, equipping my home with an LCD-TV, wireless laptops, cellphones, etc. would have been difficult. I did have a cellphone with Unefon which was the cheapest carrier at the time, they were only 1 peso (about 9 cents) per minute for outgoing local calls; 2 pesos for national long distance and about 3.25 pesos for call to the US. You didn’t have to pay for incoming calls, but still this was quite expensive – my girlfriend would call me from her cell and say “Call me right back” and hang up so it would be on my bill not hers! 😉