Internet in Italy

The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Italy is .it and is sponsored by Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.

Currently Internet access is available to businesses and home users in various forms, including dial-up, cable, DSL, fiber to the home, wireless and satellite. However the lack of funding to improve and maintain the Italian phone network has made it incomplete and outdated,[1] and many urban, hill and mountain areas in Italy aren't covered by broadband internet.[2]

Broadband Internet access reaches 18.1% of the population, under the European average (22%)[3] and 31% of Italian homes have Broadband Internet Access, under the European average (48%).[4]54,3% of Italian families have a computer (but 60% of them haven't followed a computer course[5]) and 47,3% have Internet access[5][6] (43% in 2007, 42% in 2008), lower than the European average (60%).[4] Computerization is also slow in Italy: only 15% of Italian people use Internet for online banking or e-Government services (European average: 28%), 17% read online newspapers (European average: 26%), 7% use electronic commerce services (European average: 25%) and 7% search for a job (European average: 13%).[4] Only 53% of Italian people can access the Internet (European average: 65%)[6] and 50% of Italian people have never used a computer.[1]

73% of Italian Internet users use the Instant Messaging, in particular 11.4 million of people (83%) use Windows Live Messenger.[7]

Souce : www.wikipedia.com