Internet and e-commerce industry in Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America, populated by It is home to some 3.3 million people, one third of whom live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. Notably, an estimated 88% of the population is of European descent. Uruguay represents one of the most economically developed countries in South America, with a high GDP per capita and the 47th highest quality of life in the world.

In terms, of telecommunication and Internet field development, Uruguay appears to be one of the regional leaders. Having weathered trough the global financial crisis much more successful than most other Latin American countries, Uruguay managed to reach high level of Internet development. Moreover, the downturn even slightly leveraged telecom market deployment. With a highly skilled workforce and one of the best infrastructures in Latin America, Uruguay enjoys an excellent reputation with international investors.

Country’s largest ISPs are represented by:

• Anteldata, by ANTEL 
• Dedicado,
• TelMex, also related to CTI Movil 
• Movistar
• Claro

The state-owned incumbent, Antel represents Uruguay’s exclusive local fixed-line operator; however it competes with other companies in long distance telephony. Despite being a monopoly, Uruguay’s local fixed line sector has achieved the second highest teledensity in Latin America after Costa Rica.

Uruguay’s operators deliver a wide variety of Internet connection services, including:

• DSL services, provided by the state owned ANTEL
• Wireless Internet (that is very expensive at present expensive because of high taxation and radio spectrum licenses costs)
• 3G mobile internet is offered by all the mobile phone companies with rates of up to 3 Mbit/s. The 3G rates are similar to ADSL rates.
• EDGE and GPRS services are also offered by all mobile phone companies at very low at very low flat rates.

The ADSL service is available across the country via the state-owned Antel. However, you can subscribe for ADSL only if you have a corresponding land line with Antel. Thus Antel delivers unlimited ADSL services at speeds ranging from 640/128 kbit/s for $25 per month to 40 GB for $106 per month. That is, meantime, one of the most expensive DSL services in the region (including Argentina, Brazil and Chile), while wages in Uruguay might be lower than in the other countries.

Wireless connection is delivered by Dedicado, that was established before or about at the same time than Anteldata (in 1999), but since ADSL was not available at the same time on every neighborhood, Dedicado had the majority of the permanent internet connections. Since 2005, Dedicado has been deploying WiMAX services. However, as the service is not offered nor advertised yet. Nevertheless, there are other wireless operators, Dedicado remains the main one.

As for the 3G services Uruguay appeared to be amid the first countries in Latin America to launch 3G networks and achieve nationwide UMTS coverage. All three mobile operators (Antel, Telefónica’s Movistar, and América Móvil’s Claro) offer mobile broadband as well as 3G services.

As for the public places Internet is available some shopping malls and other commercial business offer WiFi access at their location. Cyber cafes also remain popular throughout the whole country, but very inexpensive (from about $0.4 an hour).

Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Uruguay is.uy, administered by Servicio Central de Informatica. Two years registration agreement is very expensive, $360,as of www.rwgusa.com data. Meantime strict restrictions for the registration under the domain exist. First of all, local presence is required. Then it’s necessary to be a customer of Antel and have local admin-C.

Registration under second-level domains is also available:

• .com.uy: for commercial companies (a local billing contact is required for foreign registrants.)
• .edu.uy: for local educational entities.
• .gub.uy: for local governmental entities.
• .net.uy: for local Internet service providers.
• .mil.uy: for local military.
• .org.uy: for non-profit organizations.

Private domain names must be registered only at third-level.

As for the Internet penetration it’s relatively low at present, with over 38% of Uruguayans connected to the web. That may be compared to 2000 when it was only 11% of Internet subscribers and 2005 with 21% of Internet users. So the growth for the decade, meantime is considerable, making up over 260%. Despite rapid Internet deployment, country still occupies only 1% of South American Internet market share mostly due to its relatively small size.

Following the deployment of internet related services, e-commerce sector in the country has also been in progress, though it’s still sluggish.

The country’s Internet and e-commerce future is obviously promising. Though, fixed broadband has enormous growth potential, ADSL speeds are low and prices are high. Meanwhile, Uruguay is one of the safest nations in Latin America – peaceful, politically stable, free from corruption, and not prone to natural disasters. These factors stipulate successful deployment of Internet related services as well as e-commerce services rolling out that of course attract foreign partners and international investors, by its excellent reputation.