Telephone flows on the provincial and national level. An exemple from Argentina

The aim of the present study is to analyze the structure defined by operator-connected (manual) telephone calls on two different levels in Argentina. On the provincial level the purpose is to identify by graph analysis the main nodes defined by the flows and the spatial structure of the contacts within the urban system of Tucuman, a province in northwestern Argentina. On the national level, the study concentrates firstly on the total outgoing flows from Tucuman. Afterwards, the structure of these flows is compared with that of four other provinces. Two of these provinces, Salta and Santiago del Estero, are located in the Northwest Region like Tucuman, while the other two, Mendoza and San Juan, are located in the Cuyo Region in western Argentina. The results show that both on the provincial and the national level the flows are strongly concentrated to the main centers. On the national level the structure of telephone calls shows that there is a lack of contacts between different regions. This structure is similar to the one defined by the traffic on the road and railway networks .Lesko Andrés P. Telephone flows on the provincial and national level. An exemple from Argentina. In: NETCOM : Réseaux, communication et territoires / Networks and Communication Studies, vol. 7 n°2, septembre 1993. pp. 492-523