Internet use in Slovenia has grown rapidly over the past decade.

In the first quarter of 2007, according to statistics provided by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, just under 950,000 persons - 56 per cent of all persons aged 10 to 74 - were regular Internet users, 2 per cent more than during the same period of 2006. The share of daily Internet users was 40 per cent, 3 percentage points higher than in the same period in 2006.

58 per cent of households had access to the Internet in the first quarter of 2007, 4 percentage points more than in the same period of 2006. Also in the first quarter of 2007, 44 per cent of households had broadband Internet access, an increase of 10 percentage points over the same period in 2006.

96 per cent of Slovene enterprises with 10 or more employees had Internet access in the first quarter of 2007, and 22 per cent of Slovene enterprises employed IT specialists. These figures have remained more or less the same since 2005.

During this same period 29 per cent of persons aged 10 to 74 used the Internet for educational purposes and 2 per cent of persons took part in online courses (E-learning). Of 11 per cent of persons who educated themselves in the first quarter of 2007 (eg in school, university or on various courses), 63 per cent of them used the Internet for downloading the learning material and 51 per cent used the Internet for research as part of a training course, while another 40 per cent looked for availability of books or articles in libraries and 36 per cent exchanged information relating to the course content with other course participants.

The Internet is used at practically all education institutions. There are also hundreds of Public Internet Access Points, many of these are so-called 'E-schools', which provide the public with both Internet access and opportunities to learn information/communication technology skills. The number of users of the state's E-administration services is relatively small, however it is growing fast. The most commonly used E-administration service is the land registry.

The computer network ARNES, Academic and Research Network of Slovenia was established as a network for connecting educational and scientific institutions in Slovenia and provides free access to the Internet to all secondary school students, university students and teachers. The information network COBISS - Slovene Virtual Library connects all Slovene libraries into a single system and provides information on the accessibility of literature and other databases at any time.

ARNES also operates the Slovene Internet Exchange point (SIX) as a non-profit service, facilitating the exchange of local Internet traffic between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Slovenia. Any legal entity with ISP status in Slovenia can join SIX, on the condition of bringing its own router to the SIX location. Peering arrangements between member ISPs are left to the parties involved.

The Slovene ISPs currently connected to SIX include: Arnes http://www.arnes.si/; Amis http://www.amis.net/; Masicom http://www.masicom.net/; Mega-M http://www.mega-m.net/; NETSI http://www.netsi.net/; Perftech http://www.perftech.si/; Sinfonika http://www.sinfonika.si/; SiOL http://www.siol.net/; Softnet http://www.softnet.si/; T-2 http://www.t-2.net/; Telemach http://www.telemach.si/; Triera http://www.triera.net/; Tušmobil http://www.tusmobil.si/; and Voljatel http://www.voljatel.si/

Slovenia currently publishes 15 electronic dailies and, apart from the national channels, most radio and television broadcasts are also shown on the Internet. The sites that are experiencing the fastest growths are those of public broadcaster Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenia) and the commercial broadcaster Pop TV alongside small ads sites Bolha and Avto.net.

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