[3] 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.
[3] For connectivity, some individual subscribers rely on mobile telephony, though access remains expensive, with most using dial-up services as their primary means.
[3] Approximately 50 percent of the expenses of small ISPs are local connection costs paid to the state-owned company controlling the market.
[3] 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.
[3] In Azerbaijan, fixed-line telephony is largely centralized in the hands of the state-owned telecom provider AzTelecom, which also acts as a commercial ISP.
[3] Delta Telecom (previously operating as AzerSat) is the main ISP in the country, supplying international connectivity to at least 90–95 percent of all users.
[3] AzEuroTel started commercial activity as a telecommunications company and thus managed to establish a relatively wide network infrastructure.
Azerbaijan applied for World Trade Organization (WTO) membership in 1997, and even though some progress in liberalization of services was made, the country still remains on the accession agenda.
It has been suggested that there is not enough political will to join the WTO, mainly because local businesses fear the loss of their advantageous position in the internal market.
Anecdotal accounts claim that filtering of specific Web sites occurs, which is seemingly the result of informal requests to ISP managers by state officials from the Ministry of National Security (MCIT), or the presidency.
As a result, the National Television and Radio Council ordered a discontinuation of the broadcast of Russian and Turkish TV stations on Azerbaijani territory.
For example, Eynulla Fatullayev, the editor of Azerbaijan's largest independent newspaper and an outspoken critic of the government, was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison on charges of terrorism and inciting ethnic hatred.
Fatullayev was sentenced earlier during the same year under the criminal libel provision to 30 months in prison for a posting attributed to him that blamed the Azerbaijani government for one of the massacres in the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992.
Sensitive videos considered offensive to Azerbaijani national feelings were uploaded online to cause a massive uproar in society.
[5] In 2007 and 2008, the OpenNet Initiative tested for content filtering on AzNet, DeltaTelecom, AzerOnline, and AzEuroTel, as well as several end user locations (such as Internet cafés).
[citation needed] The popular opposition blog Tinsohbeti.com was blocked in March 2008 after it published an article detailing political and economic problems in Azerbaijan.
Before presidential elections in October 2008, the Web site was unblocked, but by then the original domain registration had expired and no longer hosted the opposition blog.
[6] At Internet cafés, many owners impose restrictions that prevent users from downloading large attachments and visiting certain pornographic sites.
On September 27, 2020, due to the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the "Ministry of transport, communications and high technologies of Azerbaijan" imposed restrictions on the use of the Internet in the country.
The Azerbaijani Internet community is hoping that the proposed council will be able to decrease cyber security risks without undermining the privacy of users.
In 2014, eight activists from the N!DA and Free Youth movements were arrested for organizing online protests in 2013, eventually receiving jail sentences ranging from six to eight years.
The charges included the distribution of religious literature, making public calls to overthrow the constitutional regime, and incitement of ethnic hatred.
[9] Hilal Mammadov, a human rights defender and editor of the newspaper Tolishi Sado, was arrested on June 21, 2012, and sentenced to 5 years in prison after he shared a popular video on YouTube entitled “Ti kto takoy, davay dosvidaniya!” (Who are you?
Mammadov posted a comment under the video stating that it had made Azerbaijan more popular than the government had been able to in their efforts regarding the Eurovision Song Contest.
He was arrested soon after, and charged with illegal drug possession, treason, and incitement to national, racial, social and religious hatred and hostility.
The author of the Web site http://www.pur.gen.az, infamous for its biting humorous content, posted a caricature of the president of Azerbaijan in 2006.
[citation needed] The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, an exclave of Azerbaijan, closed down Internet cafés for several days in March 2008, according to the Azerbaijani press.
In early 2007, five Armenian websites were inaccessible, and users were shown a block page commenting on the political affiliation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.