Abstract
Until 1995, there were no Internet nodes in Guatemala, and few institutions enjoyed access to email and remote database access. The first Internet connections became active in late 1995. A surge in the number of commercial and academic users followed. The Internet was embraced with the enthusiasm transmitted by early adopters and reflected in the media. GUATEL, the Guatemalan telecommunications company, cooperated with the establishment of the academic network, but in many ways its tight control over the telecommunications infrastructure delayed the introduction of Internet services. Changes are occurring during 1996, as President Alvaro Arzú's government prepares to end GUATEL's monopoly.

Keywords
Internet, Guatemala, GUATEL, telecommunications, monopoly, Mayanet, Mayapaq, Racsapac, huracan.cr, nicarao, uvg.gt, UCRVM2, Telepuerto de Guatemala, CONCYT, World Wide Web, Cybernet, Chapines Online.

Contents:

• 1 TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES IN GUATEMALA
• 2 ENDING GUATEL'S MONOPOLY
• 3 THE PRE-INTERNET ERA: UUCP, BITNET, AND X.400
• 4 MAYANET: GUATEMALA'S ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK
• 5 COMMERCIAL INTERNET SERVICES
• 6 USERS AND USE
• 7 SUGGESTIONS FOR RELATED RESEARCH
• 8 REFERENCES
• About the Authors

The access to international and local computer networks depends on the policies instituted by the governmental telecommunications company GUATEL, Empresa Guatemalteca de Telecomunicaciones. Since 1971 GUATEL holds, by law, the exclusive right to manage all public communications services, including those that did not even exist at the time the law was written (Ibargüen, 1992.)
GUATEL has not met the growing demand for basic services. By mid-1996, there were only about 400,000 phone lines serving a population of over 10 million, or 4 lines per 100 inhabitants. The ratio was much lower outside of the urban areas: 80% of all phone lines were installed in Guatemala City (population: 2 million), 19% in other cities, and only 1% in the rural areas. According to GUATEL's management, over 300,000 applications for new lines were on their waiting lists. Total unsatisfied demand was calculated to be between 600,000 and 1.2 million lines, and 95,000 new lines that had been paid for by users had not been connected (Chang, 1994; "Telecomunicaciones", 1996; Urízar, 1996). Users wait up to 10 years and pay between US$1,000 and US$1,500 for a phone line.
Data transmission services are not well developed either. Leased lines are expensive and scarce. A public competition to install a countrywide data network was announced in 1987. Two years later, Sprint/Telenet was awarded the contract. By January of 1992, 90% of the network had been installed: five main nodes in Guatemala City and one in the city of Quetzaltenango with 64 Kbps links, plus 35 points of access throughout the country. This X.25 packet switching network was named Mayapaq: Maya for the Mayan culture that thrived in Guatemala over a thousand years ago, paq for the Spanish word paquete, packet.
Mayapaq was connected to Costa Rica's Racsapac (RACSA, Radiográfica Costarricense, S.A.) through the regional X.75 microwave network coordinated by COMTELCA, the Central American Telecommunications Committee. RACSA also offered points of access for the data networks in other Central American countries: Mayapaq in Guatemala, Antelpac in El Salvador, Hondutel/Teledatos in Honduras, Nicapac in Nicaragua, and Racsapac in Costa Rica and Panama. This constituted the only regional data network. Mayapaq also had an X.75 link to Accunet (AT&T) at 9.6 Kbps, one to TRT at 4.8 Kbps, and one to SprintNet at 64 Kbps (Contreras, 1992.) Awarding the contract and building Mayapaq took over 5 years. The commercialization of the service was slow: rates were only tentatively set, potential users were not informed, and usage was slow in picking up. There have been technical problems, notably the slow speed of many dial-in connections: 2,400 bps is typical, 9,600 bps the maximum. Users outside of Guatemala City complain of PADs that never answer, forcing them to spend on long distance calls into the more reliable stations in Guatemala City. Studies on Mayapaq's effectiveness are not publicly available to the authors' knowledge.
All international data and voice traffic outside of Central America flows via satellite. Guatemala, through GUATEL, is a signatory to INTELSAT, holding the minimum .05% of all shares. This has been seen as one of the reasons why GUATEL has held so tightly to its monopoly in the provision of satellite services (Jacobs, 1993.)
During Vinicio Cerezo's presidency, the company Telepuerto de Guatemala applied for and won a concession to operate a data transmission facility via satellite. Telepuerto is part of Grupo Zeta, a business group that manages similar facilities in other Central American countries. Available services include 64 Kbps channels through Telepuerto's terrestrial station (one type F- 1 10 meter satellite dish for Intelsat, a 4.5 meter satellite dish for PanAmSat) or via individual VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) stations (Pasch, 1994a.) By the time Telepuerto was ready to operate (July, 1992) GUATEL decided to revoke their permit. Telepuerto went to court, suing the manager of GUATEL, Ernesto González Méndez, and demanding their right to operate, but lost ("CC declaró...", 1993.) Further negotiations with GUATEL have been difficult. Telepuerto should be able to begin official operations in the first quarter of 1997, if GUATEL's monopoly ends as announced.
Since late 1992, after revoking Telepuerto's permit, GUATEL started offering IBS, an International Business Service. In mid- 1995, the cost of a 64 Kbps line, usually subdivided into a data channel (19.2) and four voice lines, was about US$8,000 per month. This included the downlink in the United States. A 128 Kbps channel cost about US$12,000 per month. The service was strictly point to point, and not resaleable. Services could be bought through AT&T and MCI ("Long Term...", 1993.) At least 16 organizations were IBS users by mid-1995, including the Canadian Embassy, Avon, Citibank, 3M, Ginsa, Pacific Bank, Proctor & Gamble, Visa International, GBM (IBM), and others. Most users had downlinks into the United States (Duke, 1995).

2 ENDING GUATEL'S MONOPOLY

There have been several attempts to end GUATEL's monopoly. In the late 1980s, the government of President Vinicio Cerezo allowed private companies to bid and win concessions to add 300,000 new phone lines, and to provide cellular and satellite services. However, most of these contracts were reviewed and canceled after the new President, Jorge Serrano Elías, came to power.
In 1993, after the abrupt end of Serrano Elías' mandate, Ramiro De León Carpio took over and announced that by the end of his mandate in early 1996, both GUATEL and Fegua, Ferrocarriles de Guatemala, the national railroad company, would have been privatized (Hurtarte, 1993.) Dr. Manuel Ayau was appointed coordinator of the "Governmental Privatization Committee." Dr. Ayau's related experience dates as far back as 1963, when he advised then President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes to privatize the national phone company, "Empresa Nacional de Teléfonos" (Ayau, 1995a.) As a successful businessman, a vocal free-market proponent, and the founder of the UFM, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Dr. Ayau represented the stance of the Guatemalan business community. He saw the need for 2 million new phone lines as well as for new services, such as cellular telephony and satellite links. However, he argued that GUATEL would never be able to make the necessary US$ 2 billion investment. Thus, in 1994 Dr. Ayau proposed selling GUATEL: 33% of all shares would be auctioned off to prequalified investors; 60% of shares would be freely distributed to all registered voters and to members of the military forces, and 5% would be given to GUATEL's workers, who could also opt to buy the remaining 2%, or 2 million shares. (Pasch, 1995a.) However, this plan did not awaken any cooperation from the Ministry of Finance, nor from those entities to be privatized. Ayau resigned, the Committee was disbanded and the plan was never implemented ("Ayau reconsiderará...", 1995.)
The government of Alvaro Arzú was inaugurated in January, 1996. Three months later, the new Minister of Communications, Transport, and Public Works, Fritz García-Gallont, announced that GUATEL's monopoly would soon end. This was a bold move. Traditionally, GUATEL has acted quite independently of the Ministry of Communications, its parent institution. The Latin American Telecom Report observed that "the communications minister Oscar Martínez appears to provide GUATEL with a substantial amount of leeway over the management of the country's telecom sector." ("Long Term...", 1993.) In 1994, a scandal broke when GUATEL's general manager, Guillermo Porras Ovalle, seemed to be blocking the privatization efforts of then Minister Gorge Erdmenger (Ruiz Calderón, 1994; Solares Jr., 1994.) With his announcement, García-Gallont announced his intention to open up a new era of cooperation between his Ministry and GUATEL.
García-Gallont also acknowledged certain "anomalies" in previous business handled by GUATEL. He referred specifically to the 1995 public offering for cellular phone services, which is still under investigation (Ajanel Soberanis, 1996a; Morales Monzón, 1996.) The power wielded by GUATEL's management has led to illegal moves and corruption. The new manager found that many existing contracts with GUATEL's providers were overpriced, and negotiated discounts of up to 25% (Villela, 1996.) Bribes were often expected by GUATEL's employees and received in exchange for expediting certain licenses and for granting phone lines: "the illegal sale of phone lines [is a] vice instituted and executed at plain sight, abusing the patience of the public" (Vásquez Araya, 1994). Prensa Libre, the daily with the highest circulation in the country, remarked that GUATEL is "one of the most generous mines that serve as a source of illicit enrichment for government servants" (Pérez, 1994.)
In May 1996, Alfredo Guzmán, a young systems engineer, was named new general manager of GUATEL. He quickly drew attention by announcing an ambitious privatization plan. GUATEL will become a partnership, in which workers own a percentage of the stock. Initially there will be no private investors. Guzmán expected that, by March of 1997, the competition in all services would be open. And this included all services: local and international voice lines, data networks, and satellite data communications. A new telecommunications law, the Ley General de Telecomunicaciones, would create a regulatory office responsible for overseeing the interconnection of public networks and the access to network elements, also managing all frequencies (including television and radio), and allocating other resources (Ajanel Soberanis, 1996b; "Gobierno anuncia...", "GUATEL revela..."; Urízar, 1996.) With an eye on the March 1997 deadline, Guzmán started working to restructure GUATEL. His goal: create an efficient company capable of competing with the expected new contenders. By mid-1996, over 60% of GUATEL's income was derived from international calls, which cost two to three times more than comparable calls from the United States. On the other hand, local calls were relatively inexpensive, so much so that GUATEL was "losing" money in this part of its business. Charges were about US$.66 per month for residential service. This included 600 free minutes of local calls and US$0.0044 per additional minute (Urízar, p.13.) Because of its price structure, GUATEL would post monthly losses of Q.20 million (approximately US$3 million) if it lost its revenue from international calls.
The workers' unions posed a difficulty for Guzmán. According to a survey, 70% of all Guatemalans were in favor of breaking up GUATEL's monopoly. However, the workers' unions strongly disagreed. By mid-1996, GUATEL had 7,000 employees, or 57 lines per employee. Carmen Urízar, a researcher with CIEN (Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Nacionales, Guatemala) points out that efficient phone companies tend to have about 250 lines per employee, or five times less employees than GUATEL (Urízar, 1996). Both unions, STEGUATEL, Sindicato de Trabajadores de GUATEL, and the Sindicato 22 de febrero feared that hundreds of workers would lose their jobs. They also complained that their proposals for handling the restructuring process had been ignored (González & Morales, 1996.) Negotiations can be tense. For example, in December of 1994, the workers unions announced that they "would take industrial action, cutting off all domestic and international telephone services" if the governmental privatisation drive continued ("Union Resistance...", 1994.) On the other hand, union members have complained of receiving death threats and suffering attacks (Hernández, 1996.)
If the process of desmonopolización takes place as planned, and judging from the level of interest expressed by foreign and national communications companies, by late 1997 there should be a variety of options open to users, including the legalization of Telepuerto's operations, VSAT use, a privately operated fiber optic based frame relay network in Guatemala City, cable-based connectivity, etc.

3 THE PRE-INTERNET ERA: UUCP, BITNET, AND X.400

The critical shortage of phone lines, the high cost of international phone calls, the difficulty in accessing PSNs, and the tight control of all telecommunications services including IBS, made it difficult for potential users and service providers to develop and use national networks and made it almost impossible to connect to international networks. This delayed the adoption of electronic mail, database searching, and other tools commonly used in other countries. This situation is similar in other Central American countries. In this context, it is interesting to see how various connectivity efforts have fared. Few studies have been published about the adoption and use of computer networks in Central America. Statistics about numbers of users and growth are almost nonexistent. It would be very interesting to study how the introduction and spread of communication innovations has depended on a few key individuals, as can be gleaned from the following description.
nicarao, the first email node in the region, was born at CRIES (Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales) in Nicaragua. In 1985, a small group of CRIES researchers decided to link the affiliated research centers and NGOs spread throughout Central America and the Caribbean through a low cost, easy to operate computer network. The group included Kent Norsworthy, Gustavo Diéguez, Jimi Campbell Jerez, Alfonso Dubois, and later Alberto Cabezas, a Chilean with experience in the use of modems and email. Participants in the project could open accounts with the IGC (Institute for Global Communication) based in San Francisco, California. Access to IGC was via dial-up through Costa Rica's packet switching network. With funding from NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development) and the IGC, an email node was created in 1989. This node, nicarao, consisted of a 386 microcomputer with a 9,600 baud modem. In 1988, IGC had become the central APC node, a network of interconnected uucp nodes. nicarao became the first Latin American APC node (Norsworthy, 1996).
Another important effort was the huracan (hurricane) project, a uucp service managed by Theodore Hope in Costa Rica and used by about one thousand Central Americans between September 1990 and mid-1995. Initial funding was provided by the regional (Latin America/Caribbean) UNDP (United Nations Development Program) project for non-commercial data communications networks. Telecommunications costs were at first covered by the Canadian International Development Agency (ACDI) and later on by usage fees. huracan.cr was a 386 (8 MB RAM, 650 MB disk) computer running Interactive Unix and set up as an X.25 host on Costa Rica's Racsapac. Users connected to huracan by calling Racsapac or one of its points of access throughout the region. Connection costs were between US$0.05 and US$0.15 per minute. The cost of receiving email varied according to the size of each message, starting at about $.50 for 2 Kbytes. huracan communicated with the rest of the world via dial-up calls to uunet, using a Telebit T2500 modem. (Hope, 1992).
A third uucp node was run by Luis Furlán, director of computing services at the UVG, Universidad Del Valle de Guatemala. Mr. Furlán first registered the top Guatemala domain (gt) in August of 1992. With limited funding he was able to run an email node, uvg.gt, for a small number of his University's faculty and students. In July 1993, service was also offered to outside researchers for a monthly fee.
At one point, there were hopes of interconnecting uvg, huracan, copan.hd (Honduras), the node at the UNI (Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Nicaragua) and possibly other academic/non-profit uucp nodes in what some referred to as a "Central American UUCP backbone". This would have served as an integrated, "low-cost option before obtaining full Internet connectivity" with "alternate connections in case of technical problems" (Ortega, 1993.) Sharing the cost of international calls through this "uucp gateway" among all participants would have lowered the overall costs. However, at the same time, the Costa Rican Internet projects were gaining strength and pushing further developments in its direction. Costa Rica is a regional leader in telecommunications development. By 1996 this country had the highest phone density in Central America, 14 lines per 100 inhabitants. RACSA, as mentioned previously, took advantage of the regional microwave infrastructure to expand their Racsapac services. And Costa Rica was first in becoming a part of the global networks. Guy de Teramond, a physicist who had studied in France, felt the need to communicate with his colleagues through email. Thanks to his efforts, the UCR (Universidad de Costa Rica) connected to BITNET in November 1990 (de Teramond, 1992) and to the Internet in January 1993 (de Teramond, 1993.)
BITNET use through the UCRVM2 node was free of charge for research institutions. Access was possible from the rest of Central America through the X.28 ports run by RACSA. By January, 1992, there were about 1,200 registered BITNET users in the region, of which 75% were at the UCR and the rest were spread out at over 30 institutions in the region. In Guatemala, by early 1992, only a dozen researchers had BITNET accounts. Among these was Rafael Flores, Research Coordinator at the INCAP (Instituto de Nutrición de Centroamérica y Panamá), who was actively trying to find a way to connect INCAP to the Internet. At another regional research institute, the ICAITI (Instituto Centroamericano de Investigación y Tecnología Industrial), the librarian, Rocío Marbán, offered Dialog and BRS searching.
Email services were also being used by commercial organizations. These tended to be individualized efforts, tailored to each company's needs and operations. Esso, the EXXON subsidiary in Guatemala, started using an internal email service in 1987 and by 1992, downloads from the Miami headquarters were done four times a day via dial-up connections. Sun Microsystems installed a dial-up link in Guatemala in November 1991, with the purpose of providing faster technical support for local clients. The system ran on a SPARC 2 workstation with 1 GB disk storage and a 14.4 Telebit modem. Downloads occurred twice a day with the California headquarters, and occasionally with the SUN offices in Costa Rica. SUN clients could apply for one free account and login as often as needed, but since there was only one phone line serving the node, they were asked to limit their usage to 15 minutes at a time. This node operated for about 4 years.
Alternatives to expensive dial-up uucp systems were provided by several commercial providers with various degrees of success. X.400 service was available through MCI Mail (Contactel), Mayamail (Telemail via GUATEL), SprintMail (Telemail via Mundinet, Inprosersa), Geonet (Citel), Easylink (AT&T), and Delphi, Itinet, and Racsamail (Prodata). These providers had the very difficult task of developing the demand for a service that was relatively expensive and unknown to the Guatemalan public, while dealing with GUATEL's Mayapaq and the limitations in the speed and reliability of service they could offer. By mid-1995, Itinet (Prodata) claimed about 350 users countrywide (Pasch, 1995b.) In all, considering the academic uucp users, private businesses running their own connections, and commercial services, the total number of email users in Guatemala by early-1995 reached, at most, 1,000.

4 MAYANET: GUATEMALA'S ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK

An encouraging sign in terms of funding for a possible academic network, was the creation of the FONACYT (Fondo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología), the national science and technology fund, in November 1992. According to the initial announcement, the fund was to receive Q15 million (about US$2.5 million) from the government every year. The fund would be managed by the CONCYT, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología ("Creado el Fondo...", 1992.) Once this fund was created, the odds improved for implementing technological projects in Guatemala.
At that time, the Comisión de Informática was one of the most active committees inside the CONCYT. Members included Luis Roberto Baessa (President), Carlos Berges (USAC, Universidad de San Carlos), Patricia Castillo (ADIG, Asociación de Informática de Guatemala), Luis Furlán (UVG, elected President after Baessas's term), Rocío Marbán (ICAITI), Rafael Mendía (UFM), Grete Pasch (UFM), Mario Sosa (URL, Universidad Rafael Landívar), and a representative from GUATEL. The committee drafted various proposals to advance the use of computers and communications in Guatemala, including the creation of an Internet link and a national academic network.
The first draft of this project, later known as "Mayanet", was presented to Saul Hahn, director of the OAS RedHUCyt project, during his visit to Guatemala in February, 1993. Dr. Hahn offered to support a national network initiative which would become part of the Central American project, funded to establish "a backbone of interconnected institutions with an outlet through the Costa Rican National Research Network" (Hahn, p. 7). This backbone would use the basic infrastructure provided by the COMTELCA microwave network to interconnect all Central American countries to the Costa Rica main node. Given the limitations of the COMTELCA infrastructure, the Comisión insisted on the need for a satellite link to serve Guatemala. At that time, the cost for the uplink at 64 Kbps was quoted by GUATEL at over US$4,500 per month, plus US$2,000 per month for a downlink in Maryland, United States with Sprint. Negotiations with GUATEL for lower rates started then.
Under Luis Furlán, a small group of representatives from the five Guatemalan universities, two research institutions (ICAITI and INCAP), and the CONCYT continued working together to push the Mayanet project forward. In 1995 Magalí Morales, the CONCYT's National Science & Technology Coordinator, became the driving force behind the project. In February, 1995 an initial agreement was signed between the interested parties and the Guatemalan government. By April 1995, the final contracts between the participants and GUATEL were signed. GUATEL agreed to cover the expenses for the leased 2 Mbps lines to each participant, plus the cost of the shared 64 Kbps uplink. Each participant agreed to pay US$350 per month for two years to cover the cost of the downlink in the United States. The OAS donated the central Cisco 7010 router, routers and nameservers for the universities, plus additional equipment for network expansion.
Mayanet was officially connected to the Internet on December 6, 1995 (Hahn, 1995). The number of users effectively connected then was low, for various reasons. First, GUATEL explicitly forbid the use of dial-in access for remote users. In their view, this would increase the risk of "commercial usage" of what was supposed to be a purely academic network. Second, participating institutions had varying degrees of technical knowledge, no administrative experience in managing Internet resources, and varying degrees of infrastructure ready to make the most of their connectivity (see Table 1.) The two universities who were best prepared (UVG and URL) suffered a two month delay in the installation of their leased lines, but this did not seem to affect the spread of Internet use on their campus.

Table 1 Internet-related infrastructure of MayaNet participants
ICAITI, Instituto Centroamericano de Investigación y Tecnología Industrial: www.icaiti.org.gt.

Mid-1995: UNIX and Novell network. October 1996: Alpha running NT + 15 PCs, Coax and UTP Ethernet. One line for dial-in

95: Network with over 100 workstations. October 96: Novell network, Alpha + one linux server, 85 stations, UTP Ethernet.

Mid-1995: no campus wide network. October, 1996: UTP in central building, Sun server, 25 PCs ready to be connected.

October, 1996: HPUX server, Novell, 8 PCs, Coax Ethernet.

Campus-wide FDDI fiber optic network in place since 1994 (Pasch, 1994b.) By mid-1995: NT network servers (486/66 Mhz Pentiums) installed in several buildings, various computer labs with over 100 networked PCs, Novell. By October 1996: about 200 accounts opened, 300 networked PCs (60 connected to the Internet), one phone line for external dial-in access, one for internal dial-in. Distributed Internet access expected for November, 1996.

October, 1996: Novell network, one Alpha server, 50 PCs; fiber optic network, 10 Fl, UTP and coax Ethernet. Internal network pending. Two lines for dial-in access.

Mid-1995: uvg.gt uucp node. Early 1996: new uucp node, uvalle.gt for outside users; uvg.edu.gt on Internet. October, 1996: NT, HPUX and Sun (25 stations total); Novell network (38 stations), Lantastic network (50 stations, for local American School), UTP Ethernet (103 machines). Fiber Optic network, 10 Fl. Four lines for dial-in access.

Of these institutions, the UVG had the fastest growth in the number of active users, probably a result of the individual efforts of Luis Furlán and the technical savvy of Frankie Arzú, a young computer science professor and enthusiastic Internet user.
Although exact numbers are not available, the directory of Guatemalans on the network, Chapines Online (www.nortropic.com/chapines/), contains a good sample of users both in Guatemala and abroad. Table 2 was extracted from the user records in October 1996. In some cases, one account can be shared by many users. For example, all library personnel at the ICAITI share one account, biblio@icaiti.org. Many university students opened commercial accounts instead of waiting for their institutions to provide one for them. For example, 35 UFM students who registered with Chapines Online had opened accounts with a commercial provider by October 1996.
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Table 2.  MayaNet users registered with Chapines Online
Institution		Users 
-----------	   	-----
UFM       		None
URL       		13
UMG        		 1
USAC       		 1
UVG       		70
INCAP      		 2
ICAITI    		12
CONCYT     		8

5 COMMERCIAL INTERNET SERVICES

Commercial services grew much faster. Cybernet de Guatemala (guate.net) was the first company to offer commercial Internet access in Guatemala. Although they had a working connection by early 1995, the official announcement of their services was delayed until November 6. The initial monthly rates were US$60 for an email account with 40 hours of SLIP access. An unlimited access rate of US$66 per month was announced in April.
Cybernet's permit to operate as an ISP followed the guidelines established by the previous general manager of GUATEL, Gustavo Adolfo Díaz López. However, these guidelines offered two problems for other potential ISPs. First, every ISP was forced to transfer to GUATEL 10% of all Internet related sales, including services, Internet seminars, and even "revenue derived from the use of GUATEL's logo", plus 15% of related sales of software, and 4% of modem sales (Ayau, 1995b.) And, most importantly, to qualify for the approval process, potential ISPs had to fulfill a long list of technical and administrative requirements that seemed made to fit Cybernet and few, if any, other companies (Jacobs, 1996b.)
An ISP association, the Gremial de Proveedores de Servicios de Internet (GPSI), was formed and registered as a member of the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce. The GPSI helped exert pressure on GUATEL to revoke the exclusive contract with Cybernet. Several members of the Mayanet project also spoke out. In April, GUATEL published a new set of rules for ISPs, including a provision that revoked all contracts granted previously ("GUATEL: Acuerdo Número 04-96", Article 19.) In the words of Alfredo Guzmán: "What we wish to accomplish here is that instead of having only one company providing Internet services, many providers can have access" (Canteo, 1996.)
From then on, ISPs were required to register with GUATEL, and to use only GUATEL's earth station to connect to the Internet. By mid-1996, GUATEL was operating one 512 Kbps link to Teleglobe in Canada, and a 512 Kbps link with MCI to Virginia. A T1 link to the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) was in the planning stages (Giordano, 1996.) The monthly fees for connectivity were set in detail by the new guidelines: US$3,250 for 64 Kbps, US$5,850 for 128 Kbps, US$6,700 for 256 Kbps, and US$13,600 for 512 Kbps. GUATEL also receives 2% over all Internet related sales from each ISP. 1% of this pays for the expenses of regulating the services, and 1% is destined for rural and educational Internet projects.
The new law explicitly warns against "causing damage to the State or to third parties while using the service". It also forbids using Internet phone and videoconferencing applications. It was not stated how these infractions would be monitored and punished, but several users of the Guatemalan mailing list, chapin- l, were afraid that these measures would lead to increasing government control. In this and other online discussion fora, some remembered the tight control over information exercised by previous regimes, and others made references to the opressive situation in China (Canteo, 1996.)
By mid-May, GuateRed, the Internet registry, was opened and 12 companies were interested in providing Internet services. During the month of June, the number of users grew very quickly. By September, Chapines Online listed over 900 users holding accounts with ISPs in Guatemala. The breakdown was as follows:

Table 3.  Users on commercial ISPs registered with Chapines Online
ISP 					Users
--------------------------	-----
guate.net (Cybernet)          537
infovia.com (Infovia)         134
tikal.net (TikalRed)           51
gua.net (Instared)        	 47
quetzal.net (Tecnisoft)        43
pronet.gt (Prodata)       	 33
c.net.gt    (Inprosersa)       28
gbm.net.gt (GBMNet/IBM)   	 26
guatenet.net.gt (Kepsa)   	 22
geocities.com             	 10
hotmail.com                 11   

Note that at least 21 Guatemalans had already found the free email services of Hotmail and Geocities. Of those registered, 35 had built a homepage on Geocities, and many participated regularly in the Guatemala Online "Powwow" Forum, the Guatemala IRC channel, and other Web chat pages. Our best estimate of total number of Internet users is as follows:

Table 4. Estimated number of Internet users in Guatemala
Month (96)  Est. Internet users, Guatemala
-----------	-------------------
March       Between 500 and 800
May            1,000 - 1,300
June           2,000
July           2,500
October        3,500
December est.  Between 6,000 and 10,000 

6 USERS AND USE

More important than the number of users is how the Internet is being used in Guatemala. The advantages of electronic mail and surfing the Web have to be experienced to be understood. For example, in 1993, we emailed an order for Tracy LaQuey's "The Internet Companion" through the Software Tool & Die (obs@world.std.com) from a PC, bypassing the slow and unpredictable Guatemalan post office service. Then, during the 1993 coup d'etat, when the media was forcefully silenced, we shared news reports received via email and through the huracan newsgroups with faculty and students at our University. It is important that policymakers and officials get acquainted with the technology at this, very personal level, otherwise the importance of the medium is only paid lip service to, but never really understood (nor backed) by them. Fortunately, Guatemalans in all walks of life are beginning to explore the Internet:

7 SUGGESTIONS FOR RELATED RESEARCH

Research efforts need to concentrate on the collection of relevant statistics and user studies. Studies could also make use of the newness of Internet in Guatemala. Rogers (1983) suggests that looking at "inter-connectedness", i.e., the degree to which "the units in a social system are linked by interpersonal networks", is a useful way of measuring innovativeness in organizations. Studying the interaction of Internet users in Guatemala, where the technology is just being introduced, could provide clues as to how these personal networks grow. Studies could also focus on "innovation leaders", their characteristics, and their position in interpersonal networks both inside and outside of their organizations.
Finally, research has shown that the early adopters do not necessarily have to be cosmopolitan, specialized, and of the highest social status. Cancian (1967) found that those who have the most to gain tend to adopt risky innovations first. There is also some evidence that computers and communications systems are being used by disadvantaged citizens, notably those who are being "politically oppressed" and who have contacts with foreign grassroots organizations (Annis, 1991.) In Guatemala, more research on the adoption of the Internet should be carried out from this perspective.

8 REFERENCES

Ajanel Soberanis, Carlos (1996a, July 19) Gobierno diseña nueva estrategia para adjudicación de telefonía celular. Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 77.

Ajanel Soberanis, Carlos (1996b, August 22) Ejecutivo presentará iniciativa de ley para convertir a GUATEL en Sociedad Anónima. Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 92.

Annis, Sheldon (1991, Fall) Giving voice to the poor. Foreign Policy 84, 93-106.

Ayau Cordón, Manuel F. (1995a, April 6) La privatización: novedosa idea? Prensa Libre (Guatemala), 12.

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9 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Grete Pasch works as a consultant in information systems, and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the creation of dynamic Internet resource directories. Carmen Valdés is an independent consultant specializing in the analysis of Guatemalan media.