Off the wire
• Market exchange rates in China -- Sept. 13  • 30-ton meteorite found in northern Argentina  • Australia's hard-line asylum seeker program costs taxpayers 7.5 bln dollars: report  • BIMSTEC anti-drug trafficking group meets for capacity building  • Chinese yuan strengthens to 6.6726 against USD Tuesday  • U.S. flies B-1B bombers over S.Korea after DPRK's nuke test  • S.Korea's import prices fall to 9-year low on strong currency  • Philippine president admits "purposely" skipping ASEAN-U.S. meeting  • Aust'n PM's approval rating below Opp. Leader one year after taking power: poll  • Tokyo stocks open higher amid U.S. shares gain on receding Fed rate hike hopes  
You are here: 　 Home

Internet access progressing across LatAm, Caribbean

Xinhua, September 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

In 2015, 43.4 percent of all households in Latin America and the Caribbean had access to the Internet, almost doubling the 2010 level, according to a report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

"The percentage of Internet users...in Latin America and the Caribbean grew 10.6 percent per year between 2000 and 2015," said the report named "The State of Broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean 2016", which was released Monday in Costa Rica.

According to the report, Internet access levels varied greatly among countries of the region. Of the 24 countries analyzed in 2015, only Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay had over 60 percent of household Internet penetration. Three were between 45 and 56 percent. Fifteen were between 15 and 45 percent. Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua were below 15 percent.

The report showed an increasing mobile access in the region. In 2010, fixed broadband and mobile broadband connections were almost identical. However, by 2015, mobile connections had risen by 802.5 percent while fixed connections had only risen by 68.9 percent.

Despite the progress, connection speeds still lag behind. No country in the region has more than 5 percent of its connections with speeds over 15 megabytes per second, while the percentage stands at 50 percent in developed countries. Endi