Vice President Amado Boudou appears to be a big Apple fan.

In this photo you can see him meeting with Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino.

But if you’re an Apple geek what you’ll notice about the picture is that Boudou’s desk is full of Apple products. He’s got 1) a big iMac 2) a wireless Apple keyboard 3) a wireless Apple touch mouse and 4) and iPhone 4 or 4S (bottom of the photo, implying it may belong to Lorenzino).

Boudou is also using a LaCie portable hard drive, which is made specifically for Apple computers.

These products are expensive and can be hard to find in Argentina. Indeed, the government banned iPhone imports a long time ago, forcing Argentines to get them from MercadoLibre or somewhere else.

The import restrictions have also made it hard for local Apple resellers to honor the company’s international AppleCare warranty. Dealers here can’t import the parts needed to fix Apple products. This has been very frustrating for some Apple owners, including many readers of this blog.

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Claro, Argentina’s leading cell phone company, is rollling out a new 50 megabit, fiber optic broadband service.

The service is the fastest currently available for Argentine households, Claro said in a statement Tuesday.

“This new technology is already available in 3 de Febrero, Morón, Vicente Lopez, Avellaneda and Berazategui, where it currently offers 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 and 50 megas…,” Claro said.

The announcement comes just days after Grupo Clarin started offering its own 30 megabit service, known as Fibertel Evolution.

Fibertel Evolution uses a fiber optic network to deliver broadband to nodes located around the country and likely in your neighborhood (fiber to the node, or FTTN). The nodes then delivery Internet access to households using traditional coaxil cables. (Read more about Fibertel Evolution here.)

Claro said its “fiber to the home” or FTTH service is 100% fiber optic. Both carriers can increase speeds if demand calls for it.

Claro is expanding its coverage area not just in Greater Buenos Aires but also in Argentina’s interior, where some 300,000 homes already have access to the company’s fiber optic network. Claro’s service also allows for fixed-line telephone plans.

Initially, at least, the service will be limited to the areas listed above, making it a competitor to Fibertel Evolution only in select neighborhoods.

After years in the wilderness of painfully slow Internet access, the race for blazingly fast broadband is finally on in Argentina. Here’s to faster surfing for all!

For more information about Claro’s service, click here. For more about Fibertel Evolution, click here.

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Argentina’s Internet service provider, Fibertel, is now offering its new ultra fast 30 megabit download service, making Argentina the third country in Latin America to offer such fast broadband, according to Fibertel.

The new service, called Fibertel Evolution, offers upload speeds of up to 3M, about twice as fast as its previously fastest service.

Fibertel officially launched the service at a hip event in Recoleta on Tuesday, though the brand’s nationwide ad campaign won’t begin until October.

A Fibertel official said the service will cost 300 pesos a month for customers of the company’s cablevision TV service. It will be 450 pesos for everyone else.

Fibertel can increase the download speed to 100M and may eventually do so, depending on how consumer demand evolves in the coming months and years.

Evolution users will have access to exclusive technical support but will be limited to downloading 250G per month. Once that limit is exceeded, Fibertel reserves the right to reduce a user’s bandwidth speed to 6M until the beginning of the next month.

Fibertel invested 150 million pesos ($35.7 million) to build the backbone and infrastructure necessary to host the faster technology, known as Docsis 3.0. The new service relies in part on a new fiber optic network, which connects to household via traditional coaxial cable.

Evolution will initially be available in the City of Buenos Aires, Greater Buenos Aires, Campana, Zárate, La Plata, Santa Fe, Rosario, Córdoba, Paraná and Mar del Plata.

You can sign up for the service here.

If you sign up for Evolution, please share your thoughts about it here in the comments section.

Happy Surfing!

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings provided new details on Wednesday about the company’s online video service in Argentina.

Among other things, Reed said Netflix aims to have all of its TV and movie offerings available in their original languages with subtitles and secondary audio options.

The video streaming company, which already has more than 25 million customers in Canada and the U.S, started streaming in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on Wednesday, a day after it launched in Brazil. By the end of next week, Netflix will be offering its service to 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

For a look at why Netflix launched here before doing so in Asia and Europe, check out my article here.

For local readers, the key points are that Netflix will: (more…)

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Netflix, the U.S. film and TV Internet streaming company, will launch its service in Argentina on Wednesday.

The company will charge 39 pesos (about $9.28) a month for unlimited streaming.

Netflix launched its first Latin American service in Brazil on Monday and plans to expand rapidly throughout the region. For more details, click on the company’s official press release here or on Netflix’s blog here.

It’s unclear how much the local service will mirror Netflix in the U.S. Will the same films and TV shows be available or will intellectual property and distribution rights change the online library?

Will TV shows and movies be dubbed or have subtitles or some mix of the two? Will it be possible to view the streaming in HD?  Separately, how will Argentina’s Internet service providers and their relatively slow local bandwidth offerings stand up?

Netflix officials have been in the region studying its Internet infrastructure and are confident the service will work well. Rochelle King, Netflix VP of User Experience and Design, said the following in a blog post:

“We’ve licensed thousands and thousands of hours of feature films, classic favorites, gripping telenovelas, documentaries and kids shows we know you’ll enjoy.  We’ve been testing and figuring out the right internet architecture to make sure the quality and speed of the Netflix streaming experience is the best it can be.  And we’ve been training people locally to deliver the excellent customer support Netflix is known for in the U.S. and Canada.”

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will be in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to formally launch the service. I’ll be at his press conference. What would you ask him?

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Argentina’s leading cable TV provider, Cablevisión, has fallen behind on plans to launch its new ultra-fast Internet service.

A Cablevisión official had said back in February that it planned to increase download speeds by up to 10 times in the first half of 2011.

But we’re now in the second half of the year and Cablevisión’s Internet unit, Fibertel, still doesn’t know when it will be able to offer the service.

Fibertel plans to offer the faster service by deploying the DOCSIS 3.0 modem technology already used in the U.S.

But a Fibertel official said no deployment date is available.

That raises questions about how ready Argentina will be for the planned arrival of Netflix, the video streaming company, which said it will offer its service in Argentina by the end of the year. Netflix requires fast Internet access, especially for HD content.

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Have you ever wanted something that you just couldn’t find in Argentina?

Ever been jonesing for some pancake mix or syrup or some cool item like an iPad 2, a Zoom microphone or a Canon EF 55mm lens?

The Mule Pool hopes to be your solution.

The Mule Pool is an online exchange that connects buyers with travelers (mules) so you can get what you want. You pay a mule to bring it to you. Or, say you’re traveling and want to make some extra cash. You could mule something back for somebody else. How does it work?

1) You tell The Mule Pool what you want.
2) Mules review open requests and determine how they can help.
3) You (the buyer) put your money into an escrow account. The Mule Pool guards the money until it’s sure your product was delivered.
4) You arrange to meet the mule.
5) Once you confirm to The Mule Pool that transaction has been carried out, the mule gets paid. (more…)

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A stellar new iPhone App lets you listen to and record your favorite radio shows in Argentina.

The Radio Argentina App, created by 24/7 iPhone Apps, is easy to use. You can listen to and record live radio or even configure the App to work as a radio alarm.

You can also program it to record shows for you on a timer.

This is a perfect tool for journalists or anyone else who wants or needs to listen to news radio shows, etc.

The App can even display song names while you’re streaming music to your phone.

The company was kind enough to give away 10 free Apps to Argentine Post readers.

If you’d like a free one, just send an email to me taos@argentinepost.com.

Or click here and buy it for US 99 cents on iTunes.

Here are some of the App’s features:

✔ Alarm Clock
✔ Sleep Timer
✔ Search by radio name
✔ Graphic Equalizer
✔ Favorites list
✔ History of last played stations
✔ Regular updates over the air
✔ Customer service support
✔ Song title and artist name (when available)
✔ iPhone 4 Retina Display icon
✔ Recording
✔ Facebook & Twitter support
✔ Advanced Alarm Manager – Multiple Alarms, Day Selection, iPod music / Radio station and more
✔ Transfer Recordings to your computer with iTunes USB File Sharing (iOS 4.x)
✔ “Wifi only” On/Off switch (setting can be found in the main setting app under Radio
✔ Airplay support (Tested on Apple TV)
✔ YouTube clip for the currently playing song
✔ Automatic recordings: set an alarm to start a recording

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By Taos Turner @taos on Twitter

Argentina’s leading cable TV provider, Cablevisión, plans to launch a new ultra-fast Internet service in the first half of 2011.

The plan, which the company confirmed late Wednesday, will offer customers of its Fibertel Internet service download speeds that are up to 10 times faster than what they are currently.

As reported here last year, Fibertel will offer the faster service by deploying the DOCSIS 3.0 modem technology already used in the U.S.

Price information is not yet available.

The service will make it much easier to download or stream HD video and engage in hi-resolution video conferences. (more…)

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President Cristina Fernández on Monday pledged to marshall investments totaling $2 billion to create a nationwide fiber optic network so that everyone in Argentina can access the Internet.

Fernandez called access to information “a universal right” and said the plan will prove to be a “historic milestone” like the creation of public television here was 59 years ago.

The announcement is also part of a plan by the government to provide free, nationwide open-air HDTV signals to households around the country, even in areas that have never had access to cable TV or other broadcast signals.

The HDTV network will have a total of 16 channels, including one dedicated to showing Argentine films, Fernández said.

The broadband plan also calls for free WiFi hotspots in plazas and other public places around the county, as well as the creation of cyber libraries.

It’s unclear exactly how the new fiber-optic network will be built, though Fernández said it will be partly a private and public sector project. It’s also unclear what kind of download speeds the network will offer. (more…)

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Adam Williams, a U.S. expat who is studying Spanish in Argentina, has created a new iPhone app to help people learn Argentine slang, or “lunfardo.”

I haven’t tested the app thoroughly, so I can’t confirm that all the definitions are spot on.

But I’ve used it enough to say that it’s a simple, fun and easy-to-use way to improve your understanding of lunfardo.

In addition to providing basic definitions, the app lets you to test your knowledge of local slang by taking multiple choice quizzes.

You can download it via iTunes for $1.99 by clicking here.

For more information, check out Adam’s Porteño Spanish website here.

To download free iTunes lunfardo videos, produced by The Argentine Post, click here. You can also see some of them on YouTube by clicking here.

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Cablevisión plans to offer a total of 20 HD channels by the end of the year and 30 by mid 2011.

Cablevisión chief executive Carlos Moltini confirmed the plans to The Argentine Post last week after a meeting with local bloggers.

Argentina’s leading cable TV provider is also working on plans to offer much faster download speeds to customers of its Fibertel Internet service.

Fibertel will offer Internet downloads speeds up to 10x faster than those currently available, Moltini said in the meeting. The company will offer the faster service by deploying the so-called DOCSIS 3.0 modem technology already used in the U.S. (more…)

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