JHOANA

TECH 19 OCT 2007 - 10:48 a.m.
Ten 10 million Colombians have internet
By: Elespectador.com
More than 10.1 million Colombians, 23 percent of the total population, have Internet access, according to a report by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT). The study of the state agency, for the first half of the year, said the number of Colombians who have access to the computer networkexceeds the world average of 19 percent. The results indicate that Internet subscribers increased by 28.6 percent in the first half of 2007, reaching 1,141,714, ie a penetration of 2.6 ciento.Este growth is the highest in the last semester, only surpassed by increasing the second half of 2002 when the increase was 33.7 percent. The number of users who benefit from such accesses amounted to 10.097million, reaching a penetration of the population of 23 percent and well above the average for Latin America at 20.8 percent for the first time in recent years, the global average found in 19 percent. The study showed that increased access dedicated 50.2 percent, reaching a total of 943,628 subscribers, of which 56.4 percent are xDSL, Cable 36.8 per cent, 4.5 per WiMAX and wireless percent and 2.3percent of other technologies. A point highlighted in the report, is the increase of 84.4 per cent of WiMAX and wireless access route between December 2006 and June 2007, reaching 42,740 subscribers. The report shows that 17.3 percent of Internet subscribers are corporate and 81.8 percent are residential and you can see that between December 2006 and June 2007 corporate subscribers increased by81.8 percent and the residential grew 20.8 percent. Moreover continuing declines switched subscribers, which rose from 259,707 to 198,086 during the first half of the year, representing a decrease of 23.7 percent, primarily obeying subscribers with access switched, have been replacing dedicated access. Likewise, traffic and demand prepayment increased 52.2 percent between December 2006 and June2007, reaching 953 million minutes. Regarding the velocity distribution of subscribers, the study found that 57.5 percent are between the speeds of 100 and 300 Kbps and 27.9 percent use speeds between 300 and 600 Kbps. Subscriber growth is highlighted at speeds below 100 Kbps, which rose from 35,494 to 75,172 and located in the speed range of 200 to 300 Kbps increased from 123,136 to 246,598, anincrease of 100.3 percent. The report shows that over the previous semester, Bogotá decreased its share by 6.6 percent, but continues to lead with 45.8 percent of all subscribers using xDSL, Cable and WiMAX technologies. The decrease was primarily due to the overcrowding of these technologies at the national level, which entered service in 53 new municipalities with the previous quarter, reaching acoverage of 316 municipalities in June 2007. In the rest of the country using xDSL Cable & Wireless and WiMAX will show similar to the previous quarter, in the other major cities, participation is how Medellin has 15.6 percent, 5.5 percent Barranquilla and Cali 4.9 percent. On the subject of WiMax was found that this segment grew by 84.4 percent, from 23,179 to 42,270 subscribers between December2006 and June 2007, achieving the highest increase among Internet technologies in Colombia, where residential WiMAX subscribers grew by 69.2 percent to 34,249, while corporate increased by 189.5 per cent to 8,491. Major cities with Internet access via WiMAX are Cali with 32.2 percent of total subscribers, with Barranquilla and Cartagena 13.5 percent to 7.7 percent. Importantly, to date, for thecompletion of the report were made as wide band dedicated all access. However, from now only be considered broadband connections that provide the same or higher than 512 Kbps, criterion is not equivalent to the report done by operators with cutting speeds effective June 2007. This, considering the recent resolution issued by the CRT in new conditions must be met quality various telecom service...