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Honduras Telecommunications
The telecommunications system in Honduras is poorly
maintained,
largely outmoded, and inadequate to meet the needs of the
population. The entire country had only 35,100 telephones,
or fewer
than seven telephones per 1,000 inhabitants in 1993.
Service is
limited primarily to government offices, businesses, and a
few
wealthy households. Half the telephones are in the
capital, a
fourth are in San Pedro Sula, and the remainder are
scattered
throughout the country in large towns. Many small towns
and rural
areas remain without telephone service of any kind.
Outside of the
capital, low-capacity, radio-relay systems or unreliable
open-wire
lines connect the national network with switching centers
in towns.
International service is of higher quality than are
domestic
telephone links. In the 1960s, the Central American
Microwave
System (CAMS) was built between Mexico and Panama. The
CAMS passed
through Tegucigalpa and provided 960 channels of
simultaneous
telephone or telex links to the outside world. In the
1980s, a
satellite ground station named Lempira was inaugurated
near
Tegucigalpa. Operating with the International
Telecommunication
Satellite Corporation's (Intelsat's) Atlantic Ocean
satellite, the
ground station allowed for more than 100 additional,
simultaneous
international telephone calls, as well as for live
television
broadcasts. Increased demand for additional telephone and
data
links required the installation of another satellite
ground station
in the 1990s.
Radiobroadcast is the primary mode of disseminating
information
to Hondurans. All parts of the country are in range of at
least one
amplitude modulation (AM) radio station, either
mediumwave or
shortwave in remote areas. In 1993 Honduras had a total of
176 AM
stations, twenty-eight frequency modulation (FM) stations
(mostly
in larger cities), and seven shortwave stations. Four of
the
shortwave stations are intended for domestic reception in
remote
areas. The three other shortwave stations, which have more
powerful
transmitters, are owned by evangelical Christian groups
and
broadcast to an audience throughout the Western
Hemisphere. Television in 1993 was limited to eleven
stations in
larger cities and seventeen low-power transmitters in
smaller
towns.
Data as of December 1993
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