The Dominican Republic has a well developed telecommunications infrastructure, with extensive mobile phone services and landline services. The telecommunications regulator in the country is INDOTEL, Instituto Dominicano de Telecomunicaciones. The Dominican Republic offers cable internet and DSL in most parts of the country, and many ISPs provide 3G wireless internet service. Projects to extend Wi-Fi hot spots have been made in Santo Domingo. As of October 2007 a new service was introduced in the country via WiMax, by OneMax, Wind Telecom, Tricom, and the former Codetel, now Claro, that provides telephony over IP as well as nation-wide broadband services to both residential and commercial users. In fact the DR is the only country in all Latin America to have this kind of service up to this date at a national level.
Numerous television channels are available, including digital cable Telecable Nacional, Aster and Wind Telecom. Many other companies provide digital television services with channels from Latin America and the world. The reported speeds are from 256 kbit/s /128 kbit/s for residential services and up to 4 MB / 2 MB for commercial and residential service. (Each set of numbers denotes downstream/upstream speed.)
The Dominican Republic's commercial radio stations and television stations are in the process of transferring to the digital spectrum via HD Radio and HDTV.
As of May 2008, there are six major communication companies: CODETEL, Orange, TRICOM, Trilogy Dominicana, Onemax, and Wind Telecom.
On February 1, 2007, Verizon changed the names of its wireless services to Claro and CODETEL. The company has been owned since 2006 by Carlos Slim Helú's América Móvil. Claro is now the official name of the Wireless Division, and CODETEL (the original Compañia Dominicana de Teléfonos) is the updated name for the Verizon Dominicana landline and broadband market.
Telephones - main lines in use:
907,000 (2007)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
5.513 million (2007)
Telephone system:
general assessment: relatively efficient system based on island-wide microwave radio relay network
domestic: fixed telephone line density is about 10 per 100 persons; multiple providers of mobile cellular service with a subscribership of roughly 60 per 100 persons
international: country code - 1-809; landing point for the Americas Region Caribbean Ring System (ARCOS-1) fiber-optic telecommunications submarine cable that provides links to South and Central America, parts of the Caribbean, and US; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2007)
Radio broadcast stations:
AM 120, FM 56, shortwave 4 (1998)
Television broadcast stations:
25 (2003)
Internet country code:
.do
Internet hosts:
81,218 (2007)
Internet users:
1.677 million (2007)
Courtesy of Wikipedia and CIA World Fact Book
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