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| Honduras Telecommunications Research |
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 Honduras - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Besides being the second poorest country in Central America, Honduras has an extremely unequal distribution of income - almost 70% of the population live below the poverty line.
Teledensity is about 52% lower than average for Latin America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, it is slightly better than one would expect based on the country's other economic indicators. Mobile penetration is about 21% above the regional average and remarkably high compared with GDP per capita.
Fixed-line telephony has been partly liberalised, with long-distance telephony open to competition, but local services are still a monopoly of state-owned Hondutel and its franchise partners. Laws governing full liberalisation have been delayed amid allegations of corruption and political wrangling over the role of Hondutel.
The mobile sector, on the other hand, is highly competitive, with four operators offering services. The market leader is Millicom's Tigo, with about 60% market share. The remaining 40% is distributed between América Móvil's Claro, pan-Caribbean mobile group Digicel, and state-owned Hondutel.
The Internet has been slow to develop in Honduras. ADSL and cable modem technologies are available but expensive, especially at higher speeds. Nevertheless, the demand for broadband is increasing and there are some small developments regarding network upgrades to Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH).
Market highlights:
VoIP telephony services are more readily available than normal phone service and significantly cheaper.
There are good investment opportunities for wireless DSL and WiMAX, since the fixed-line and cable networks have insufficient capacity.
Cable Sula, the second largest cableco in terms of subscribers, announced it would upgrade its networks to FttH technology.
Millicom International, the leading mobile provider in Honduras through Tigo, has acquired cable TV and triple player Amnet.
Honduras has chosen the US ATSC standard for Digital Terrestrial TV.
Both Claro and Tigo have launched 3G mobile services based on WCDMA technology.
A number of factors are currently influencing telecoms growth, particularly the economic downturn and political unrest in the region.Honduras - key telecom parameters - 2009 - 2010
Category20092010 (e)
Fixed-line service
Total lines in service716,300718,000
Annual growth-13.3%0.2%
Teledensity8.9%8.8%
Internet
Internet users737,600900,000
Annual growth12%22%
Internet users penetration9.2%11.0%
Mobile telephony subscribers
Total number of subscribers (million)7.698.50
Annual growth36%10%
Mobile penetration rate96.0%103.7%
(Source: BuddeComm)
Last Update: 20 Sep 2010 Number of Pages: 25
Single User: USD $420.00 ex-GST View Table of Contents
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