The Dominican Republic is experiencing an accelerated expansion of the national broadband network, especially in rural areas of the country. As reported during the last NAB the president of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel), José Rafael Vargas, this growth is the result of the Telecommunications Development Program led jointly by the Dominican regulatory industry, Indotel and the private sector.
As an immediate consequence of the expansion, Dominican cable TV service providers now offer Internet connectivity for distant towns and villages. Likewise, wireless telephony is a reality in remote places where, until some time ago, inhabitants had to climb trees with their cell phones to make a call.
According to Vargas, the result of this program is remarkable: in the last two years Internet connectivity in the Dominican Republic went from 8% to 31%, while the number of television users grew 85%. Indotel's goal is to achieve 50% Internet connectivity by 2010, a percentage that would become one of the highest in Latin America.
Another program carried out by Indotel, thanks to the expansion of the broadband network in the Dominican Republic, was the installation of more than a thousand "virtual classrooms" throughout the country that allow the public easy and free access to computers, Internet and virtual libraries.
