Colombia’s ICT Ministry has published a bulletin detailing the progress of its national digital plan, Vive Digital, which was launched last year to overcome several barriers to massification of the Internet. Among Vive Digital’s goals, Colombia aims to increase the number of Internet connections fourfold by 2014.
According to the report, the residential sector grew the most rapidly in Internet connections. In the third quarter, the number of Internet connections grew 60% in stratum 1 and 32% in stratum 2. (“Stratum” is the Colombian government’s term for the country’s socioeconomic classes, with stratum 1 the least economically favored and the 6 the wealthiest.) Internet connections grew 9% in stratum 4 and 5% among strata 5 and 6.
There are 4.6 million broadband connections. The ICT Ministry said the implementation of the national fiber optic network will accelerate progress toward Vive Digital’s goal of connecting nearly 100% of municipalities. Of the total’s subscriptions to broadband Internet, 63.9% were fixed subscribers and 36.1% 3G connections (1.65 million subscribers). In addition, there are 1 million 2G mobile Internet connections and 1.3 million other fixed Internet connections, for a total of 5.9 million Internet subscribers. As a result, Internet penetration has climbed to 12.8%.
Regarding mobile telephony, Colombia closed the third quarter with 47.7 million lines. Comcel leads in both prepaid (67.2%) and postpaid (56.1%) market share, followed by Telefónica Móviles with 32.5% in postpaid and 20.3% in prepaid. Colombia Móvil has 11.3% in postpaid and 11.9% in prepaid. UFF counts 0.5% in the prepaid segment.
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