Argentina: 32% of the country's homes do not have access

The level of growth in the last five years averaged 2.8% per year, a very slow pace to achieve the universalization of Internet service.

According to this study, during the fourth quarter of 2020, Argentina registered an increase in the total of fixed Internet accesses, reaching 9,571,562: this represented an interannual variation of 8.9% and a penetration per 100 households of 68%.

But when analyzing the evolution of this indicator over time, the level of growth during the last 5 years averaged 2.8% per year, a clearly very slow pace to achieve the universalization of the service, an objective that if this trend continues it would demand about twelve years for its realization evaluated CABASE.

Regarding these results, the president of the business entity, Ariel Graizer, said that "since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Internet has proven to be an essential tool for the production, work and education of the population and, as such, it needs laws and regulations that contribute and promote their development, encouraging private investment and putting 1,200 SMEs and cooperatives in the foreground, who are the ones who have the challenge of bringing connectivity to the most remote parts of the country to connect the 32% of households that still they do not have fixed broadband service.

When deepening the analysis of penetration throughout the country, the results of the report revealed a significant disparity by province and region.

In this sense, while the City of Buenos Aires has more connections than households (108%) and penetration at the national level reaches 68%, there are still nine provinces below 50%.

The districts with the best performance in terms of fixed Internet penetration levels per 100 households are Capital Federal (108%) , La Pampa (82%) , San Luis (82%) , Córdoba (78%) , Tierra del Fuego (76 %) , Santa Fe (74%) , Buenos Aires (69%) , Chubut (68%) , Neuquén (67%) , Río Negro (61%) , Entre Ríos (59%) , Tucumán (55%) , Salta (54%) , Jujuy (53%) and La Rioja (50%).

At the other extreme, Catamarca has a penetration of the 49%, Santiago of the Matting of 44%, Chaco and missions of the 43% and currents 42%, while the rate of Mendoza is 39%, of Santa Cruz 37%, San Juan 36% and Formosa 32%.

According to the report, between December 2019 and December 2020 Patagonia registered the highest growth percentage of total fixed Internet accesses, reaching 14.17% and, within that region, the province that grew was Chubut, registering an interannual evolution of 36%.

In descending order, the Cuyo region had a year-on-year increase of 13.52%, with Mendoza with a growth of 16%: it was the province with the best evolution in the year.

The NOA region had a positive interannual evolution of 13.11%, standing out Tucumán, with a growth of 16%; For its part, the NEA region had a year-on-year increase of 11.55%, with Chaco showing the highest growth (18%).

Finally, the Central region registered growth in total accesses of 7.65% during the last year, and the province with the highest growth in that period was Buenos Aires.

The report also revealed that the strict isolation imposed in large urban centers and regions considered to be of high epidemiological risk during last May, generated a new increase in the data traffic that circulates in the National Network of 32 Regional Internet Interconnection Points (IXP ) of CABASE, which exceeded the 1,000 Gbps mark, showing a growth of 10% compared to the average of April 2021.

This is in addition to the close to 50% increase in average traffic volume between December 2019 and December 2020.