Information Technology Landscape

Peru

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Internet Diffusion

Taking into consideration the socioeconomic environment, Internet and technology penetration are relatively high in Peru.  Due to the fact that accessing Internet from home may result expensive for most of Peruvians, Internet kiosks have become popular for a large percentage of the Internet users in Peru.

The Internet revolution started in 1991 with the Peruvian Scientific Network (RCP) although “everything else in Peru was falling to pieces.” [37].  Originally, only colleges and universities joined to it and developed around the e-mail tool but rapidly expanded onto web browsing.

On the household level, Internet access is limited since only 6.37% of the population has a telephone line [38] and only 4.79% has a computer at home.  However, an alternative to these constraints are the Internet kiosks (Cabina Internet), which are used by 89% of the Internet users in Lima at a rate of $0.53 per hour [39].  Large has been the impact of the Internet kiosks that 1.5 million of the 2.0 million users in Peru use them [40].  According to Peruvian Prime Minister Roberto Dañino, half of these kiosks are located in Lima, most of which are located in the poorest neighborhoods of Lima, quotes the magazine of the Inter-American Development Bank. 4  Moreover, according to the World Bank report, Peru is ranked 13th out 82 countries on a scale that measures frequency of public access to the Internet [41].

According to RCP, the only one Peruvian domain registry, the number of domains granted per year between 1996 and 2003 are as follows: [42]

Domains 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Total
 com.pe  37  195  340  498  1738  1440  1410  1730   7388
 edu.pe  12  52  43  55  40  69  80  104   455
 gob.pe  5  37  16  16  17  41  58  107   297
 mil.pe  0  1  1  2  1  1  1  0   7
 net.pe  6  0  0  0  28  10  7  10   61
 org.pe  1  39  42  40  145  178  187  204   836
 sld.pe  0  4  2  2  0  0  0  0   8
 .pe  0  0  0  0  1  1  0  0   2
 nom.pe  0  0  0  0  1  0  0  2   3
Total  61  328  444  613  1971  1740  1743  2157  9057

Overall, the diffusion of the Internet in Peru is still low when compared to other countries in Latin America.  From the OSIPTEL website: [48]

  • Estimated Number of PCs per hundred of People in 2002

Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

  • Estimated Number of Hosts per 10,000 People in 2002

Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

  • Estimated Number of Internet Users per 10,000 People in 2002

Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

 

Last update: March 2, 2004 by Dario Canal