Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Peru's President Alan Garcia announced Friday morning that a project had been launched to provide the country's poorest regions with wireless telephones.

He explained that 700,000 of these phones would be placed throughout Peru and would cost users 30 soles per month.

The Head of State made these statements at a ceremony in which he witnessed the installation of the first of the 500,000 phone lines that will be connected in Lima's poorest districts.

Even though it was not announced how many of the capital's districts would have these phones, Garcia stated that to begin with they would be placed in Ancón, Villa El Salvador, Villa María del Triunfo, San Juan de Lurigancho, Ate-Vitarte, Santa Rosa and Carabayllo.

He added that the cost of the wireless landline would be one sol per day.

President Garcia inaugurated the new line early Friday morning at an elementary school in Carabayllo, one of Lima's northernmost districts.

He called a well-known radio program broadcast by RPP radio station.

In his speech to the people that had gathered at the school, Garcia recalled that between 1980 and 1985 "there were only 1.2 million phones in Peru".