The technical regulator of communications in Chile is the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, through the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel).

Telephone

History

Telephone and telegraph services started in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

in 1879, three years after Alexander Graham Bell, presented his patent for a telephonic system. José Dottin Husbands, an associate of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

, arrived into the port of

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

carrying the first set of switching equipment and telephones. By 1880 the first telephone company of the country is born (Compañía Chilena de Teléfonos de Edison), while in 1893, after a rapid expansion in the northern regions of Chile, telephone services started operating in the south, thanks to the founding of Telefónica del Sur (current day Grupo GTD), a company created by a group of German immigrants that had previously settled in the area of

Valdivia Valdivia (; Mapuche: Ainil) is a city and commune in southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia, and Cau-Cau R ...

, Región de los Ríos. *Main lines in use: 2,567,938 (2020 est.) *Mobile cellular: 25,068,249 (2020 est.) **Pre-paid: 17,283,257 **Post-paid: 6,847,497 *System: privatization began in 1988; advanced telecommunications infrastructure; modern system based on extensive microwave radio relay facilities; fixed-line connections have dropped in recent years as mobile-cellular usage continues to increase, reaching a level of 85 telephones per 100 persons **Domestic: extensive microwave radio relay links; domestic satellite system with 3 earth stations **international: country code - 56; submarine cables provide links to the US and to Central and South America; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2007)

Radio

*Broadcast stations: 1,490 (175 AM; 1,315 FM) (2006)Compendio Estadístico 2006
INE.

Television

*Broadcast stations: 63 (plus 121 repeaters) (1997) *

Broadcast television system Broadcast television systems (or terrestrial television systems outside the US and Canada) are the encoding or formatting systems for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. Analog television systems were standardized by ...

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

*Pay television: 4,158,874 (2012)Articulo 2012
Cambio21.

Internet

*Internet hosts: 847,215 (2008) *Internet users: 16,822,264 (2020 est.) *Internet mobile users: 4,921,587 * Internet country code:

.cl .cl is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Chile. It was created in 1987 and is administered by the University of Chile. Registration of second-level domains under this TLD is open to anyone, as established by the current reg ...

Other technical details

*Electricity: 220 volts AC, 50 Hz

References

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