Presented at the GLOBELICS 6th International Conference 2008 22-24 September, Mexico City, Mexico.The paper seeks to understand the nature of distributional consequences associated with
mobile phones in Jamaica. By distributional consequences we are referring to the changes
in the distribution of key aspects of social and personal development. Mobile phones are
a pervasive technology in almost all societies. They are even more important in societies
such as Jamaica which have had traditionally low levels of fixed-line telephone
penetration. While the potential benefits from such a communication technology are
enormous, from a policy level, it is also important to understand how these benefits (and
costs) are absorbed by different groups in society given a particular set of national
conditions.
To understand this dynamic, we first explain the framework and methodology which we will use in this paper. Next, we look at national socio-economic conditions of Jamaica.
This is followed by an examination of the development and diffusion of mobile phones in
Jamaica and the current industry environment. We then review the various public
interventions in the sector including major telecommunications policies. Finally we
analyze the various distributional consequences of mobile phones based on the national
conditions, industry structure and public interventions that have been outlined
