Telecommunications in Panama includes radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.

Radio and television

Radio stations Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

: More than 100 commercial radio stations (2007). * Radios: 815,000 (1997). *

Television stations A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

: Multiple privately owned TV networks and a government-owned educational TV station; multi-channel cable and satellite TV subscription services are available (2007). *

Televisions Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

: 720,000 (2006). The media of Panama has been highly influenced by that of the United States, since the construction of the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a condui ...

. Radio broadcasting in Panama began in 1922, and television broadcasting in 1956. Panama's official broadcaster is the National Television of Panama, which was founded in 1961. NTP started Panama's first color television service in 1972. A famous military broadcast network, the Southern Command Network (SCN), broadcast in Panama until the United States withdrew from the canal in 1999. The broadcast media were under strict control during the regime of the dictators that ruled Panama from 1968 to 1989, including

Manuel Noriega Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (; February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017) was a Panamanian dictator, politician and military officer who was the ''de facto'' ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. An authoritarian ruler who amassed a personal f ...

Telephones

Telephone services were state run by the INTEL (Instituto Nacional de TELecomunicaciones, National Telecommunications Institute, not to be confused with

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 serie ...

) until 1997, when a 49% stake was sold to

Cable & Wireless plc Cable & Wireless plc was a British telecommunications company. In the mid-1980s, it became the first company in the UK to offer an alternative telephone service to British Telecom (via subsidiary Mercury Communications). The company later of ...

, rebranding as Cable & Wireless. In 2003, the government began allowing other companies to offer telephone services. In 2010, this stake was transferred to

Cable & Wireless Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Ltd operating as C&W Communications is a telecommunications company which has operations in the Caribbean and Central America. It is owned by Liberty Latin America and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It ...

. In 2019,

Liberty Global Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with ...

's subsidiary Liberty Latin America, took over Cable & Wireless Communications' stake in the company, rebranding as +Movil, which was formerly Cable & Wireless' brand for mobile services in the country. *

Calling code Country calling codes or country dial-in codes are telephone number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The codes are defined by the ...

: +507"Communications: Panama"
''World Factbook'', U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 4 December 2013. Retrieved 7 January 2014. *

International call prefix An international call prefix, international dial-out code or international direct dial code (IDD code) is a trunk prefix that indicates an international phone call. In the dialling sequence, the prefix precedes the country calling code (and, fur ...

: 00 * Land lines: 640,000 lines in use, 90th in the world (2012). * Mobile cellular: 6.8 million lines, 96th in the world (2012). * Domestic: Facilities well developed; mobile-cellular telephone subscribership has increased rapidly; point-to-point and point-to-multi-point microwave, fiber-optic and coaxial cable link rural areas; Internet service is available. * International: Facilities well developed (2011). ** Communications cables: landing point for the Americas Region Caribbean Ring System (ARCOS-1), the MAYA-1, and

PAN-AM Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United State ...

submarine cable systems that together provide links to the US and parts of the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

(2011). ** Satellite earth stations: 2

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as I ...

(

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

) (2011). ** Connected to the Central American Microwave System (2011).

Internet

Country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

(

Top level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

.pa .pa is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Panama. It was first registered in 1994-05-25. It is administered by NIC Panamá, which is run by the Universidad Tecnologica de Panama. Because "PA" is also the postal code for the ...

* Internet users: 1.6 million users (2012), 102nd in the world; 45.2% of the population, 96th in the world.Calculated using penetration rate and population data fro
"Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2012"
, Population data, International Programs, U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved 26 June 2013"Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2013, retrieved 22 June 2013 * Fixed broadband: 288,280 subscriptions, 80th in the world; 8.2% of the population, 91st in the world (2012)."Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. *

Wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the wor ...

: 526,893 subscriptions, 91st in the world; 15.0% of the population, 81st in the world (2012)."Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. *

Internet hosts A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network. A host may work as a server offering information resources, services, and applications to users or other hosts on the network. Hosts are assigned at least one network ...

: 11,022 hosts, 132nd in the world (2012). *

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version d ...

: 1.6 million addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 448 addresses per 1000 people (2012).Population

The World Factbook ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is availabl ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

. Accessed on 2 April 2012. Note: Data are mostly for 1 July 2012. *

Internet Service Providers An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

: 11 ISPs (2005).

Internet censorship and surveillance

There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet, but there have been anecdotal reports that the government monitors private

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

s. In a few cases, law enforcement monitoring of suspects’ computers led to arrests for

sex crimes Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes. Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...

."Panama"
''Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012'', Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 22 March 2013. Retrieved 7 January 2014. The constitution provides for freedoms of speech and press, but there have been attempts by the government to impede the media’s

freedom of expression Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...

and silence criticism of public officials. The

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'' ...

Inter-American Press Association The Inter American Press Association (IAPA; Spanish: ''Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa'', SIP) is a press advocacy group representing major media organizations in North America, South America and the Caribbean. It is made up of more than 1,30 ...

, the NGO

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

, and other groups criticized government efforts to censor the press. In January 2012 then-president Ricardo Martinelli supported a bill introduced by his party ( Cambio Democratico) in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...

to penalize speech that criticized the president and his administration. The bill was withdrawn after debate. A 2012 poll conducted by the Forum of Journalists concluded that 82 percent of local journalists considered freedom of expression restricted by threats and pressure from President Martinelli’s administration. Legal actions brought by officials of the former government remained pending against many journalists. There were nine new judicial actions taken against journalists during 2012, seeking a total of 19.5 million balboas ($19.5 million). At the end of 2012 six cases were pending a decision from the tribunals, and one case was in the investigative stage. In February 2012 indigenous mining protests blocked the

Pan American Highway The Pan-American Highway (french: (Auto)route panaméricaine/transaméricaine; pt, Rodovia/Auto-estrada Pan-americana; es, Autopista/Carretera/Ruta Panamericana) is a network of roads stretching across the Americas and measuring about in to ...

near Vigui in the province of

Veraguas Veraguas () is a province of Panama, located in the centre-west of the country. The capital is the city of Santiago de Veraguas. It is the only Panamanian province to border both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It covers an area of 10,587.6&n ...

and in

San Félix District San Félix District is a district (''distrito'') of Chiriquí Province in Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern p ...

in the province of Chiriquí. The Panamanian National Police (PNP), as well as demonstrators, threatened local and international journalists covering this major demonstration. The government cut off cell phone and Internet services in Veraguas and Chiriqui Provinces from 3–7 February during protests by the Ngöbe–Buglé indigenous group that were repressed by the PNP and the Panamanian National Border Service ( SENAFRONT) patrol units. According to the Public Utilities Authority, it received orders from the National Security Council of the Ministry of the Presidency to restrict communications. Users filed multiple lawsuits charging that the action threatened freedom of communication and

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

. The law prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respects these prohibitions. Nevertheless, there have been complaints that in some cases law-enforcement authorities failed to follow legal requirements and conducted unauthorized searches. The Public Ministry maintains representatives in each PNP division to approve searches, and numerous searches were approved during 2012. The law also sets forth requirements for conducting wiretap surveillance. It denies prosecutors authority to order wiretaps on their own and requires judicial oversight. During the year several citizens claimed to have been wiretapping targets after making statements critical of the government.

References

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External links