RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina is the country with the highest Internet penetration in the region, according to a report by the International Center for the Promotion of Human Rights (Cipdh) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
The report underlines that 80.2% of the population in Argentina has access to the Internet, considering both fixed and mobile accesses.
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At the same time, the report indicated, there are “serious difficulties in the quality of the services provided by operators and the region’s backwardness in terms of digital competitiveness is also a matter of concern”.
“In general terms, everyone uses the Internet and complains about the service,” Cipdh’s executive director, Fernanda Gil Lozano, told Télam.
Considering the Internet as a “human right”, for Gil Lozano in Argentina, “we have to continue insisting that everyone has Internet and the regulators have to pay attention to the issue of investments”.
She indicated that “it has always been an issue with private, public service providers, the same happens with electricity: if companies are not controlled, they will not invest”.
For Gil Lozano, investment “is not related to tariffs, because for a long time the companies increased prices and the service did not improve”.
She pointed out that “the Conectar plan that gives tablets to children is excellent, but they will be connected to a bad service”.
She also indicated that in the survey, they detected that “we have the first place in the region for having more people connected, but when we go to the industries, they do not have good access to technology”.
The study released this Thursday includes official data from the technical report on “Access and use of information and communication technologies”, included in the Permanent Household Survey of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) and crosses information from other local and international organizations linked to the analysis of the penetration of technology in society.
In turn, the Cipdh indicated that it conducted its own quantitative research throughout the country, based on a probabilistic sample of a structured questionnaire, through face-to-face surveys on public roads and telephone surveys (IVR) on a total of 7,234 resident citizens, children, men and women between 15 and 75 years of age.
They also collated data from four Internet operators: Movistar, Fibertel, Telecentro, and Claro.
The Cipdh reported that Argentina ranks first in the list of users with Internet access per capita of inhabitants, with 80.2% of the population connected to the network, followed by Brazil with 75.2%, and Mexico closes the podium with 71.8% of people connected.
The study also reflected the relevance of access to the service for citizens since 86% of those consulted stated that due to work and study issues, it would have been impossible for them to go through the pandemic without the Internet.
Seventy-five percent of those surveyed considered the Internet “a basic service,” and 73% that “the service is vital to sustaining consumption (the economy) and employment”.
Segmenting the indicators by educational level, the study shows that among people with no education, 64.1% access the Internet; in the group with completed secondary education, the percentage rises to 89.4%, and in the group with tertiary and university education, it reaches 97.7%.
Separating by age group, and considering that the responses of minors were given by adults accompanying them, 82.8% of those between 4 and 12 years of age and 95.3% of those between 13 and 17 years of age access the Internet.
As age increases, the percentage of Internet penetration decreases.
In the 18-29 age group, access is 93.9%; among those between 30 and 64 years of age, the percentage is 88.4%; and in the case of seniors aged 65 and over, the rate is 55.2%.
Regarding service provision, “whether through a monthly Internet subscription in their homes or 4G service, 68% consider the connection to be very poor or bad, 25% stated that the service is regular and only 7% said they were satisfied with the connection provided by the operators”.
The report noted that “Latin America continues to lag far behind in terms of digital competitiveness, understood as the ability to compete with other nations in a technology-enabled world”.