Internet in Venezuela

Internet use in Venezuela greatly expanded since 1998, but is mostly concentrated among younger, educated city residents, and use is centered around the capital, Caracas.

Use

Between 1998 and 2002, the number of Internet users in Venezuela grew from 207,000 to 1,585,000, but then decreased to 1,365,000 in 2003 for a current Internet penetration rate of 5.4 percent.^[1] As of 2001/2002, the vast majority of personal computers are not connected to the Internet.^[2] In 2004, the Venezuelan government estimated that 50.4 percent of the population had never used the Internet and would not be interested in doing so, while 28.9 percent were possible future Internet users, primarily young, educated, middle-class individuals.^[1] As of 2001, though there were sixty licensed ISPs, CANTV Servicios and Telcel controlled over 90 percent of the Internet market.^[3]

Historical Market Penetration

In 2000, Venezuela had approximately 240 dot-com businesses, mostly business-to-business rather than business-to-consumer.^[3] The government has been attempting to automate its processes and put its agencies and services online, assisted by a newly created agency for information technology,^[4] but these attempts have not been consistent or thorough.^[3]

During a 2004 survey, internet use was strongly concentrated among young, educated city residents, with, 76 percent of users younger than thirty-five,^[1] 67 percent having schooling beyond high school,^[1] and more than 60 percent of users coming from Caracas as of the early 2000s.^[3]

During a 2007 survey, approximately 26.0 percent of Internet users log on daily. These users tend to be upper-class individuals using home connections for educational or work research and downloading. Over half of the population connects between once and five times per week, using cybercafés for e-mailing and chatting. This group is generally male and represents all socioeconomic levels with the exception of the lowest income segment. A smaller portion of users, 16.9 percent, connect between once every other week and once per month. These light users come again from all economic strata except the lowest class, and they almost exclusively use cybercafés for job search purposes.^[1] Hotmail, Google, and Yahoo were by far the most popular sites as of 2003, followed by news sites and other search engines.^[5]

As of 2012, statistical reports have shown internet and broadband penetration in Venezuela as below average for Latin America and much lower than would be expected,^[6] considering that Venezuelaés GDP per capita is the highest in the region. State-owned incumbent CANTV has a monopoly in the provision of ADSL, with which it dominates the broadband sector. The only competition comes from cable modems, wireless broadband, and satellite. As a result, ADSL in Venezuela is slower and more expensive than in other Latin American countries. Inter occupies a distant second place after CANTV in the broadband market, with a triple-play package that includes cable TV, cable modem, and telephony. This report provides an overview of Venezuelaés Internet, broadband, and pay-TV markets, accompanied by relevant statistics, analyses, and broadband scenario forecasts for the years 2010, 2015 and 2020. See report summary here.

Pay TV is the fastest growing telecom sector in Venezuela after mobile broadband, and accounts for 15% of all telecom revenue in the country. The market leaders are DirecTV, Inter, SuperCable, NetUno, Movistar, and CANTV.^[7]

Mobile telephony in Venezuela in 2012 has been far more dynamic than the fixed-line market, so much so that mobile phones outnumber fixed lines in service by around 4.6 to one. Mobile penetration is among the highest in Latin America, trailing only Argentina, Uruguay, and a number of Caribbean islands. Venezuela is also a regional leader in terms of SMS traffic, the number of text messages surpassing the number of minutes an average Venezuelan talks on a mobile phone. The country remains one of the last bastions of CDMA in Latin America, but the two leading mobile operators, Movilnet and Movistar, are finally turning to GSM. The third operator, Digitel, offers only GSM services. This report provides an overview of Venezuela’s mobile market, accompanied by statistical data and brief profiles of the operators. See report summary here.^[8]

Key Developments

The National Fibre-Optic Backbone project aims to build a 6,940 km network; Venezuela ranks third in the world for Facebook users as a percentage of internet users; Venezuela’s pay TV market suffers from rampant signal theft; in 2011/2012, two more companies entered the Venezuelan satellite TV market: CANTV and Inter.^[7]

Movilnet, Movistar, and Digitel have been allocated additional spectrum; mobile operators are having to invest in their networks, which suffer from severe congestion; Digitel, Movistar, and MovilMax (a WiMAX provider) plan to deploy 4G/LTE networks in 2013/2014; more than one third of Venezuela’s mobile subscribers still use CDMA technology; Venezuela continues to have the region’s highest ARPU.^[9]

Legal and regulatory frameworks

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez decreed the promotion of Internet use as essential to development.^[10] Correspondingly, the government promotes use of information and communication technologies (ICT) through a regulatory framework designed to promote competition among ICT businesses, but no special programs encourage such businesses directly.^[10]

Personal Internet use appears to be essentially unrestricted by current law and regulation. Despite an erroneous press release listing Venezuela among countries with Internet censorship,^[11] the U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights in Venezuela states that "there were no government restrictions on the Internet or academic freedom."^[12] Individual reports of suspected filtering are not backed by substantial evidence.^[13]

The OpenNet Initiative conducted tests of Internet censorship in late 2006 on the two major ISPs in Venezuela. The testing covered a wide range of potentially sensitive content, including sites dedicated to political opposition, freedom of expression, and general anti-Chávez media, as well as sites centered on controversial social issues such as minority religions, indigenous peoples, gambling, and pornography. This assessment turned up no evidence of filtering.^[13]

References

This article was originally adapted from the May 9, 2007 OpenNet Initiative profile of Venezuela, which was published under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

v t e Internet in the Americas North America South America Sovereign states Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela Dependencies and other territories Anguilla Aruba Bermuda Bonaire British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Curaçao Falkland Islands French Guiana Greenland Guadeloupe Martinique Montserrat Navassa Island Puerto Rico Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saba Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Turks and Caicos Islands US Virgin Islands