Communications in East Timor
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Communications in East Timor
Telecommunications
Following Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor in 1999, the telecommunications infrastructure was destroyed in the ensuing violence. A new country calling code (670) was allocated to East Timor, but international access often remains severely limited. A complicating factor is the fact that 670 was previously used by the Northern Marianas, with many carriers not aware that the code is now used by East Timor. (The Northern Marianas, now part of the North American Numbering Plan, use the code 1 and the area code 670.)
It is also often extremely expensive: for example, Telstra in Australia raised the cost of calls to East Timor to A$3.00 a minute from 97 cents in 2003. In the UK, BT's standard rate is £2 a minute.
Telstra expanded its cellular telephone signal into East Timor in 2000, and operated services until 2003, when Timor Telecom, 50.1% part-owned by Portugal Telecom, began operating fixed line and mobile telephone services. Until recently, the fixed line network was mainly confined to the capital Dili, although this has been expanded nationwide, to each district capital.
According to a press-release issued by Portugal Telecom, the total number of fixed phones (landline) are 2,100, mobile cellular are 25,000, 500 Dial-up access users and 30 broadband users (as of October 2004).
Portugal Telecom signed a 15-year contract in 2002 to invest US$ 29 million to rebuild and operate the phone system. The contract could be extended by 10 more years, totalling 25 years of monopoly. 2003 gross revenue totalled € 10.5 million.
All voice and data are carried out by Intelsat, using a direct satellite link with one hop to their downlink in Portugal.
Telephones - main lines in use:
2,100 (as per Timor Telecom press-release from Oct 2004)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
25,000 (as per Timor Telecom press-release from Oct 2004)
Telephone system:
NA
Radio broadcast stations:
AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA
The main station is Radio Timor Leste, broadcasting in Tetum, Portuguese and Indonesian. Other radio stations include Radio Kmanek, and Radio Falintil, and Radio Renascença, while there are also FM retransmissions of RDP Internacional from Portugal and Radio Australia.
Radios:
5
Television broadcast stations:
1 Televisão Timor Leste or Televizaun Timor Lorosae - broadcasts local programming, as well as retransmissions of RTP Portugal, ABC Asia Pacific from Australia and BBC World from the UK. The TV signal is confined to Dili.
Televisions:
NA
Internet country code:
.TP is the Internet top-level domain code used for East Timor, based on its previous ISO 3166-1 code. However, the latter code was officially changed to TL when the country achieved its independence on May 20, 2002, and during the course of 2005, internet domains will change from '.tp' to '.tl'.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
1
Note: There is another ISP offering their services in the capital Dili, but only Timor Telecom is authorized to provide data circuits.
Internet users:
Dial-up: 2,100 (as per Timor Telecom press-release from Oct 2004)
Broadband: 50 (as per Timor Telecom press-release from Oct 2004)
External Links
- Timor Telecom (http://www.timortelecom.tp)
- Timor-Leste Network Information Centre (http://www.nic.tl)
- Radio e Televisão de Timor Leste (http://www.rttl.org)