Uruguay Aiming for Internet Access in 90% of Homes by 2020

The government of Uruguay wants to ensure that 90% of the country’s households will have internet access by the end of 2020.

The South American country will likely realize its goal, given that more than 83% of households already have access to the web.

Approximately 43% of these homes are hooked up to high speed fiber optic cables, with the government hoping to increase this figure to 65% over the next three years.

In 2008, barely 41% of Uruguayans could access the web, but today Uruguay has the highest broadband penetration rate in all of South America.

By the end of 2016, 71% of the country was online, according the country’s National Institute of Statistics. In other words, the number of users doubled from 1.1 million to 2.2 million in the space of eight years.

Under one of its social welfare programs, the government provides early retirees with tablet computers so they can earn money by performing jobs online. As many as 100,000 tablets have been distributed so far, with 70,000 more computers expected to be delivered by the end of this year.

In August this year, Uruguay inaugurated its first submarine cable link to the US, increasing internet speeds significantly across its territory.

The underwater cable extends from its resort town of Punta del Esta to the Brazilian city of Fortaleza before being connected to Boca Raton, Florida, for a total length of over 12,000 kilometers (7,456 miles).