Telecommunications in El Salvador, although still not highly developed, showed significant growth from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. The country had a nationwide trunk radio relay system and was connected to a Central American microwave network. There were about 116,000 telephones in the country in 1986, or about 2.3 phones for every 100 people. This represented a 900 percent increase over the 13,000 phones in the country in 1964.

The National Telecommunications Administration (Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones--Antel) has owned and operated the telephone and telegraph services since 1963. The postal service, operating under the Ministry of Interior, carried both domestic and international mail.

Throughout the civil conflict, the telecommunications network was devastated by the guerrilla attacks on repeater stations and to an earth station parabolic antenna for international satellite communications (see Left-Wing Extremism , ch. 5). Telephone function boxes reportedly were also destroyed daily. AID provided generators to maintain telephone service during the frequent power outages and also replaced damaged equipment.

Data as of November 1988