Access to the Internet in Azerbaijan is growing, supported by a national strategy to develop the country into an information and communication technology (ICT) hub for the Caucasus region. The Azerbaijani government actively seeks to attract foreign aid to help boost the telecommunications and ICT sectors. While the government claims 85 percent of the population was online in 2013, service provider Baktelekom has provided free Wi-Fi zones in several points of Baku like the National Flag Square, the Boulevard, Old City, the park around the Heyder Aliyev Centre, parks of Sahil, Sabir, Samad Vurghun, Winter Park, as well as Port Baku Residence and Port Baku Mall.
Azerbaijan ranks first among the countries of Post-Soviet region for the level of broadband internet penetration. Thus, Azerbaijan left behind Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries.
Moreover, Azerbaijan is the 58th country in the world over number of its Internet users. Statistical project Internet Live Stats noted that the number of Azerbaijani Internet users has exceeded 6 million, accounting for 61.1 percent of the country's population.
The signal of the digital broadcasting covers approximately 99 percent of Azerbaijan, while over 75 percent of the country's population has access to the Internet.
Internet penetration and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) During the Soviet era, Azerbaijan was a major center for IT development, especially regarding process control systems. This legacy left the country with a reasonably large and well-developed technical infrastructure, including several research institutes and a political leadership savvy about the importance of the ICT sector. Internet development is following the pattern typical of many developing countries, with access centered on major cities, particularly the capital city, Baku. Overall Internet penetration is rising as a result of the support of the government's ICT strategy as well as the large Azerbaijani diaspora, for whom the Internet is increasingly an important channel for maintaining contact with their homeland. The number of Internet users has grown over the last several years to 3.7 million users, or 44 percent of the population, as of June 2010, estimated by the International Telecommunication Union.
Many Azerbaijanis access the Internet from shared connections, such as their place of work or study, or from Internet cafés (with the latter providing access for 19 percent of users in 2007). The rate of ownership of computers is low (2.4 units per 100 inhabitants), and Internet usage in homes is moderate, accounting for 41.6 percent of the total usage for 2007, up from 36.4 percent in 2006. For connectivity, some individual subscribers rely on mobile telephony, though access remains expensive, with most using dial-up services as their primary means. Official survey results for 2007 indicate that economic and educational barriers are the main contributing factors for these low figures, with 31.4 percent blaming the high cost of computer equipment and 21.8 percent indicating a lack of necessary skills.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies (MCIT), together with the Ministry of Education, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard, has started the pilot stage of the National PC Initiative. This program aims to provide conditions for a rapid increase of PC penetration rates and e-society development. The state-backed Program on Information of the Education System (2008–2012) plans to provide Internet connectivity to all schools of Azerbaijan. Currently, more than 200 secondary schools have been connected to the Internet via ADSL.
The cost of Internet service is steadily decreasing: as of 2010, monthly unlimited ADSL connection of 1 Mbit/s cost around US$20–25 per month. While the cost of international traffic has gone down over the last several years, the cost for usage of the local infrastructure remains unchanged. Approximately 50 percent of the expenses of small ISPs are local connection costs paid to the state-owned company controlling the market. Because these expenses are the same for all providers, they agreed among themselves to charge end users the same price for unlimited monthly dial-up service. Larger providers temporarily blocked the ISPs that tried to contravene the concerted practice. In December 2007, for example, two small providers—SuperOnline and AvirTel —were blocked by local ISPs (Adanet and IntraNS) while trying to provide service at a lower price for customers. Shortly after the providers agreed to bring the price of their services into line, the block was lifted. For similar reasons, the larger ISPs blocked another smaller local ISP, Azeronline.
