Internet Gap Among LATAM Countries Has Grown Too Wide, US Agency Shows

Internet access is on the rise in Latin America and the Caribbean, but considerable gaps remain between the haves and have-nots.

A recent study by the Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) highlights the uneven landscape, pointing to considerable disperatities in Internet access between higher and lower-income communities, as well as between urban and rural areas. For less developed countries in the region, catching up to the rest of the world will be more difficult.

Internet access for rural areas in Chile and Panama, for example, is comparable to the OECD average. In Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay, download speeds exceed 100Mb/s, with low latency, surpassing the global average and reaching levels similar to those of the US, Japan, South Korea and other advanced economies.

Chile is particularly noteworthy for outperforming the US with download speeds approaching 280 Mb/s.

In contrast, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru have intermediate speeds that align with the regional average. El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Bolivia lag behind.

The urban-rural divide remains stark in the region. Urban households in Latin America and the Caribbean enjoy internet access at nearly double the rate of rural households (74.8% vs. 35.8%). Some countries report less than 20% connectivity among rural homes.

To end the digital divide, the UN agency says, governments may need to fund internet connections for impoverished residents and create profitable conditions for telecom companies, many of which are reluctant to expand their networks into sparsely populated rural areas.