Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Living in Peru
Jobana Soto

Starting next year, prices will drop between 15 and 20 percent for LCD television sets as more people are willing to get their hands on the latest technology.

After years of high prices, Marco Contreras, director of AOC, one of the leading LCD manufacturing companies in the world, confirmed that businesses will lower its prices in 2009 and could last up until the beginning of 2010.

The price drop will occur at a time when LCD televisions are in high demand due to the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Consumers are showing more interest in owning an LCD set before the games begin.

After the 2010 FIFA World Cup, prices are expected to increase again with the hope that many Peruvians will have experienced the value of LCD sets, added Contreras.

Living in Peru
Jobana Soto

Jesús María has expanded its Wi-Fi coverage to four new locations where district officials hope to see it used by visitors in town for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this week.
 
The four locations are Plaza San José, Plaza Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Parque Huiracocha and the Casa de la Juventud.

Service is available 24 hours a day at any of the four locations. Connection speed is at 2MB.

To encourage more people to use the free Wi-Fi service, security cameras have been installed in the Plaza Andrés Avelino Cáceres and Parque Huiracocha. The remaining locations will be supervised by the district’s private security force, Serenazgo.

For a map of free Wi-Fi zones in Lima, go to Google Maps.

News Source: El Comercio

Jeff Keltner, Keltner, Business Development Manager for Google Apps, the most popular company of Internet, stated today in Lima that his company would be happy to work with the Peruvian government to provide free apps to schools across the whole country.

"If the Peruvian government is interested in working with us, we would like to explore this possibility," Keltner said during the presentation in a hotel in Miraflores for the partnership between the Peruvian university Cesar Vallejo and Google Inc.

What Google usually does with schools is offering free services, both in software and hardware, which in other cases would be paid.

Among the tools provided in the educational package of Google Apps Education Edition, are the popular email accounts “Gmail”, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Gtalk!, and the  personalized web, where the student selects the content of their choice and have access to full control of the web platform from a single screen.

"The most important thing is that we are talking about participatory applications that allow students to create and edit documents at the same time", he said to Andina news agency.

Toyota del Perú led imports of consumption goods in the January-August 2008 period, with 114.87 million dollars, 98.15 percent higher than the number registered in the same period last year, reported Tuesday the Foreign Trade Society (ComexPerú).

LG Electronics Perú ranked second importing 66.46 million dollars, a 28.96 percent rise compared to purchases in the same period last year.

Procter & Gamble Perú ranked third, importing 60.82 million dollars of consumption goods, a 35.93 percent increase.

Ripley Department Stores imported 52.60 million dollars, 8.39 percent more, ranking fourth. Saga Falabella, ranked fifth importing 52.44 million dollars, a rise of 23.15 percent.

Gloria ranked sixth buying 50.64 million dollars (14.30 percent more) of consumption goods; followed by Suzuki Perú with 48.55 million (118.41 percent); and Honda del Perú with 43.65 million (85.64 percent more).

Samtronics Perú ranked ninth importing 39.80 million-dollar-consumption goods (a 30.20 percent rise); while Nissan Maquinarias with 35.41 million (107.61 percent) ranked tenth.

Comex reported that companies imported a total of 2.94 billion dollars in consumption goods in the first eight months of the year, a 43.89 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

News source: ANDINA

Andina,  the country's state news portal, is the first to launch in Peru a beta version tuned for Apple's iPhone, which helps in easy navigation as users can navigate through feature articles, photographs and news updated minute by minute.

This application was developed based on the existing Andina mobile news service in an effort to keep mobile users up-to-date with the latest news and information about Peru.

"It is not easy to develop such an application, but our advantage is that we know the system and have the experience," Andina’s system engineer Marco Milla pointed out.

News source: ANDINA

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

For four years now, bloggers around the world have had a day to call their very own. The world's fourth international bloggers day will be celebrated on Sunday August 31.

With a community that has no geographical limits, bloggers across the globe have one day that has been dedicated to fostering this ever-increasing means of communication.

As posted on blogday.org, BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest.

Bloggers around the world will recommend 5 new blogs to their blog visitors. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs, says blogday.org.

Peru has been just as enthusiastic in taking part in this international event.

To celebrate the 4th Blog Day, Peru Blogs and Páginasamarillas.pe organized a contest from July 15 - August 22 to find the Andean country's top 20 blogs.

With over 1,600 different bloggers participating and over 16,000 votes, the contest was a tremendous success.

Bloggers received their awards at Maria Angola Hotel on Friday evening.

These are some of Peru's top blogs, all of which were voted for and chosen by bloggers across the country.

www.perunotas.com
blogs.elcomercio.com.pe/busconovio
educandoamihijo.com
lanuez.blogspot.com
biounalm.com
lahabitaciondehenryspencer.com (An interview with Living in Peru's Carsten Korch will soon be posted on this blog)
www.cucharasbravas.com
albertodebelaunde.blogspot.com
blogs.elcomercio.com.pe/pobreshombres

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Across the Andean country, telecommunications giants Telefonica del Peru and Claro have begun the sale of the iPhone, Time magazine's 2007 Invention of the Year.

Just minutes after 9 a.m., Henry Huanqui was the first person to formally* purchase one in Peru.

Henry, who stood in line for over two hours, purchased the phone at one of Claro's stores in the Limean district of San Isidro.

Having started a battle for customers several months ago, Telefonica and Claro sent invitations and made lists of anyone that was interested in purchasing the popular phone, which was released in the U.S. over a year ago.

In an effort to avoid customers from conglomerating at one store, Claro and Telefonica sent out e-mails telling users to go to specific locations.

The two companies have also launched the iPhone in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Uruguay.

According to Telefonica representatives, approximately 500 phones were sold in two hours in Chile.

A list of prices based on the plan customers choose has been posted by El Comercio daily. Click here to see.

*The iPhone has been sold at Polvos Azules, a shopping center in Lima, for several months.

The number of satellite phone connections in Peru is expected to reach 2,600 active lines this year, representing a 30 percent increase to the current number of 2,000 lines, estimated today Tesacom, digital recruit solution.

The Business Unit Manager at Tesacom, Silvina Graziadio, explained this is based on the growth and best economic position of clients and also on the new and best conditions that companies have acquired, which allows them to invest in better technology.

"In addition, there is a better regulative framework in the country linked to the topic of telecommunications, and a 30 percent reduction in the cost of the mobile devices with satellite telephone system", she said.

The executive commented that a year and a half ago, the main difficulties in Peru for the investors in this sector was equipment homologation in customs and the acquisition of licenses to sell within the national territory.

News source: ANDINA

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

The number of internet connections in Peru was just shy of 600,000 in 2007.

According to the Broadband in Peru Cisco Barometer, 598,259 internet connections were registered in the Andean country in 2007.

Even though a 23.4 percent increase was registered in 2007 when compared to 2006, the country's internet connection penetration rate is at 2.3 percent.

Reports show that this is one of the lowest in the region. With a 2.9 percent penetration rate in Colombia, a 4 percent one in Brazil, 6.6 percent in Argentina and 8.8 percent in Chile, Peru is below several South American countries.

Figures released by IDC Peru consulting firm show that the majority of the country's connections - 566,000 of them - are ADSL.

It was also reported that Peru's wireless connections doubled in the span of two years.

Wireless internet connections in the Andean country jumped from 7,000 in 2006 to 14,000 in 2007.

In 2007, out of the country's total broadband connections, 83.6 percent of them were registered to residences in Peru, while 16.4 percent belonged to businesses in the country.

Peru's highest penetration rate was registered in Lima with 4.2 percent followed by Tacna (3.4%), Moquegua (2.9%) and Arequipa (2.8%).

The regions with the lowest penetration rates were La Libertad (2.3%), Lambayeque (2%) and Ica (1.9%).

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Peru's National Statistics Institute (INEI) released on Thursday the results of a study called "Information and Communications Technology in Households".

The study, which was carried out in the first trimester of 2008, revealed that the majority of Peruvians accessed the World Wide Web by going to internet cafes.

INEI's study showed that almost 75 percent of the Andean country's residents accessed the Web by going to internet booths, while only 16.9 percent of users had an internet connection in their home.

Furthermore, it was reported that only 12.5 percent of Peruvians had access to the Internet at work while just 3.7 percent of the population cold log onto the web at a school.

The study revealed that 41.9 percent of Lima had access to the Internet while only 6.2 percent of rural areas could log onto the Web.

According to INEI, the number of homes with internet access increased 3.1 percent to 15.5 in the past year.

In addition to information on Internet use in Peru, the survey showed the cellular phone penetration rate in the country.

The number of cellular phone users in Peru increased 15.6 percent to 51.5 percent in the past year.

The use of mobile phones in Lima jumped to 73 percent when compared to last year.