Telecommunication in Honduras started in 1876 when the first telegraph was introduced, continued development with the telephone in 1891, radio in 1928, television in 1959, the Internet in the early 1990s, and cellphones in 1996.

Radio

Radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

: Radio Honduras is the lone government-owned radio network; roughly 300 privately owned radio stations (2007)."Communications: Honduras"
''World Factbook'', U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 7 January 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2014. *

Radios Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

: 2.45 million (1997) The first radio station in Honduras was Tropical Radio, which started operations in 1928.

Television

* Televisions stations: Multiple privately owned terrestrial TV networks, supplemented by multiple cable TV networks (2007). *

Television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

s: 570,000 (1997). Television in Honduras includes both local and foreign channels, normally distributed by cable. The Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CONATEL) adopted the

ATSC standard Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...

for digital terrestrial television broadcasting in January 2007. The first digital high definition TV station, CampusTv, was founded by Universidad de San Pedro Sula.

Telephones

* Calling code: +504 *

International call prefix An international call prefix, international dial-out code or international direct dial code (IDD code) is a trunk prefix that indicates an international phone call. In the dialling sequence, the prefix precedes the country calling code (and, fur ...

: 00 * Main lines: 610,000 lines in use, 91st in the world (2012). * Mobile cellular: 7.4 million lines, 93rd in the world (2012). * Telephone system: fixed-line connections increasing but still limited; competition among multiple providers of mobile-cellular services is contributing to a sharp increase in subscribership; beginning in 2003, private sub-operators allowed to provide fixed-lines in order to expand telephone coverage contributing to a small increase in fixed-line teledensity; mobile-cellular subscribership is roughly 100 per 100 persons; connected to Central American Microwave System (2011), a trunk microwave radio relay system that links the countries of

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

with each other. * Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

). * Communications cables: Landing point for both: ** the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1) linking US,

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

, Guatemala, Honduras,

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

, Costa Rica,

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

, Colombia,

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, Netherlands Antilles,

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and n ...

, and the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

, and ** the

MAYA-1 Maya-1 was a Filipino nanosatellite. It was developed under the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite program (PHL-Microsat) and was jointly implemented by the University of the Philippines and the Department of Science and ...

linking the US,

, Cayman Islands, Honduras, Costa Rica,

, and Colombia.

Hondutel Hondutel (Empresa Hondureña de Telecomunicaciones), is the Honduras government's telecommunications company. It has a monopoly on international calls. History Creation The organization was created on May 7, 1976, as an autonomous organizat ...

, created in 1976, is the state owned telecommunications company in Honduras. The first cellular company in Honduras, Celtel (now

Tigo Millicom International Cellular SA (NASDAQ U.S.: TIGO, NASDAQ Stockholm: TIGO_SDB) is a Luxembourgish fixed line and mobile telecommunications services provider dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America operating under the Tigo brand. As of ...

), started operations in 1996. Megatel (now Claro) started in 2001, Honducel in 2007, and Digicel (now

América Móvil América Móvil is a Mexican telecommunications corporation headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the 7th largest mobile network operator in terms of equity subscribers and one of the largest corporations in the world. América Móvil is a ...

) in 2008.

Internet

Top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

.hn .hn is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El ...

Internet users The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

: 1.5 million users, 105th in the world; 18.1% of the population, 147th in the world (2012).Calculated using penetration rate and population data fro
"Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2012"
, Population data, International Programs, U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved 26 June 2013"Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000–2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2013, retrieved 22 June 2013 * Fixed broadband: 64,216 subscriptions, 108th in the world; 0.8% of the population, 144th in the world (2012)."Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. *

Wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the word ...

: 347,217, 103rd in the world; 4.2% of the population, 115th in the world (2012)."Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. * Internet hosts: 30,955 hosts, 107th in the world (2012). * IPv4: 143,616 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 17.3 addresses per 1000 people (2012).Population

The World Factbook ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is availabl ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

. Accessed on 2 April 2012. Note: Data are mostly for 1 July 2012. *

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

s: 100+ ISPs (2005). The

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

has been used in Honduras since 1990 and is common in all the major centers of population. Broadband Internet access is also common. All major media have an Internet presence.

provides dial-up Internet access.

Internet censorship and surveillance

There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports that the government monitors

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

or Internet

chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

without judicial oversight. The constitution and laws provide for freedom of speech and

press Press may refer to: Media * Print media or news media, commonly called "the press" * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers * Press TV, an Iranian television network People * Press (surname), a fam ...

, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. The constitution and law generally prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence."Honduras"
''Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012'', Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 28 March 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2014. Four journalists were killed during 2012, compared with five in 2011. Reports of harassment of journalists and social communicators (persons not employed as journalists, but who serve as bloggers or conduct public outreach for NGOs) continued to rise. There also were multiple reports of intimidation of members of the media and their families. Government officials at all levels denounced violence and threats of violence against members of the media and social communicators. During 2012 the efforts of the Special Victims Unit (SVU) created in January 2011 to address violent crimes against vulnerable communities, including journalists, led to seven arrests and one prosecution in cases involving killings of journalists and social communicators. Members of the media and NGOs stated that the press “ self-censored” due to fear of reprisal from organized crime.

References

* *

External links

NIC.hn
registry for the .hn domain. {{DEFAULTSORT:Media of the United States Honduras Honduras Honduras