Costa Rica Reaches Level of 6.9 Connections per 100 Inhabitants as Speeds Improve
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- Category: Technology
- Published on Monday, October 04 2010 16:03
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The Cisco Broadband Barometer, an international study sponsored by the company, published findings on September 24th. According to the study growth had slowed when compared to the first half of 2009, when connections grew more than 20 percent.
The foundation offers the full report on their page: CAATEC - Cisco Costa Rica Broadband Barometer The intends to monitor and stimulate the progress of Costa Rica in increasing broadband Internet connectivity, and to analyze available data on such connectivity with reference to types of users, access technology, connection speed and price, and other relevant characteristics.
Each report includes information about broadband connectivity in terms of:
- Type of technology
- Type of user
- By geographic region
- Connection speed
- Connection price
- Benchmarking with other Latin American countries
The stated goal of the government is to reach 325,000 broadband connections by December of 2010. This report states that Costa Rica reached 308,520 fixed broadband connections, which represents a penetration of 6.9 connections per 100 inhabitants, so 16,480 are needed to reach the goal. Since in the second half of 2009, around 41,445 connections were added to the fixed broadband market in Costa Rica; this goal looks very attainable.
Costa Rica is not among the leaders in Latin America in connectivity, with Chile (10.4 percent), Argentina (10 percent) and Uruguay (10 percent) having the highest broadband penetration.
Report Highlights:
- Residential is the leading segment, growing 12.9 percent and reaching 230,120 connections.
- The enterprise segment grew 16.7 percent and reached 64,558 broadband connections.
- The government sector doubled its number of connections, reaching 11,100, while the educational sector decreased slightly, from 2,794 connections to 2,742.
- 42 percent of broadband connections are 512kpbs - 1Mbps, and 26.6 percent are in the range of 1 and 2 Mbps. Connections faster than 2 Mbps doubled, reaching 34,786.
- Broadband connections continue to be concentrated in urban areas. The regions with the highest penetration were Montes de Oca (19.4 percent), Escazú (19 percent) and Santo Domingo (17.6 percent). The regions with lower penetration were Guácimo (0.7 percent), Los Chiles (0.8 percent) and Matina (1 percent).
- ADSL connections grew 16.5 percent during the second half of 2009, while cable modem levels grew 5.5 percent. WiMAX reached a growth of 15 percent.
- Mobile: 1,672,798 GSM lines exist, but only 6 percent have Internet of 128 Kbps or more.
While this report mentions comparisons to other LatAm countries, the OECD publishes information related to 31 OECD countries worldwide:
http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,3343,en_2649_34225_38690102_1_1_1_1,00.html
The report on penetration per 100 inhabitants ( http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/35/39574709.xls ) is shows that Costa Rica is pretty far behind most developed nations, who on average have 23.3 connections per 100 inhabitants. Although the lowest ranking countries are in the range of 9 connections per 100 inhabitants (Chile, Mexico and Turkey).
One interesting side note is that many Costa Ricans don't have computers or Internet at home, but do have Internet access via neighborhood net cafes with hourly rates as low as 300 colones. ICE is now promoting heavily its 3G network, in preparation for the open market, so GSM lines with broadband connections should rise as people upgrade their phones.
