Internet in Latvia

The Internet in Latvia began to experience significant growth in 1999, as the consolidation of regional internet providers began to drive down prices for dial-up access. By 2000, there were 75,000 internet users and about a dozen e-commerce shops in Latvia. The average salary for a web programmer was 1.000Ls/month. High-speed access costs remained prohibitive; for example, an ADSL service planned to be introduced in July 2000 and planned to charge a monthly fee of 50,00Ls. [citation|periodical=Central Europe Review|title=Latvia Logs On|last=Gross|first=Arnis|date=2000-07-10|accessdate=2008-03-02|volume=2|issue=27|url=http://www.ce-review.org/00/27/gross27.html] By 2003, however, still only 5.4% of Latvians used the internet at home, and 60% did not use it at all; those who did instead accessed it in public areas or through their place of work, as high subscription prices for home usage remained a barrier. [citation|contribution=Country Report No. 5: Latvia|title=Statistical Indicators Benchmarking the Information Society|date=September 2003|publisher=European Commission|url=http://www.sibis-eu.org/files/WP5.3_CountryReport_LV.pdf|last=Gulbis|first=Arnis|accessdate=2008-03-02] By 2008, access prices had fallen to 11,90Ls (17€) per month for the Lattelecom ADSL line.fact|date=March 2008

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