One of the goals that has been set Gustavo Petro’s government is to connect the country by 85% in the coming years. To meet this ambitious objective, they seek to reinforce both the use of fiber optics and the implementation of satellite technology.
According to the ICT Minister, Mauricio Lizcano, Colombia has been advancing in this process. In fact, an InterNexa company plan to continue connecting to the Pacific will be announced in the coming days.
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“The vision of the Ministry is that technology has to be the transversal axis of the development of Colombia. For this we have three fundamental elements.
The first of these is connectivity, especially in the most remote areas of Colombia and in popular areas.”, Lizcano commented in an interview with Portafolio.
Now, going into detail, it is worth exposing what is the current x-ray of the use of fiber. According to figures from the ICT portfolio, by 2022, the country reported 4,354,504 fixed internet accesses only with fiber optics. In other words, of the 10.4 million households with Internet access reported by Dane, 41.3% have this technology.
By disaggregating by region, we found that the Caribbean region, made up of the departments of La Guajira, Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Magdalena, Córdoba, Sucre and San AndrésIt has 664,560 fixed fiber internet accesses.
The Central East region, which includes the departments of Norte de Santander, Santander, Bogotá DC, Cundinamarca and Boyacá, reports 1,642,088 fixed accesses to the Internet. The Central South region, which brings together the departments of Tolima, Huila, Putumayo, Amazonas and Caquetá, has 177,637 homes connected with fiber.
For its part, the Eje Cafetero region, which integrates Antioquia, Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda, registers 1,312,437 fixed accesses.
(See: The ICT sector produced returns of $26 billion in 2022).
The region of the LLanos, which covers Meta, Arauca, Casanare, Guainía, Guaviare, Vaupés, and Vichada, has registered 94,973 fiber-only Internet accesses, while the Pacific region, which brings together the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño, reports 462,809 fixed fiber accesses.
According to what you have explained the Ministry of ICT, 95% of the municipalities in Colombia by 2022 had at least one interconnection node using fiber optic technology in the national trunk network. This has also allowed the installed capacity to increase in the last five years. Likewise, more than 20,000 kilometers of fiber optic deployed in 786 municipalities of Colombia are reported.
“This is due to the fact that the private sector, such as the public sector through the National Fiber Optic Plan promoted by MinTIC, have strengthened the telecommunications infrastructure in the country, deploying or modernizing their networks towards fiber optics as a transport solution in the territories.”, explained the portfolio.
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The private sector has also started to play an important role in the use of fiber optics in the country. Currently, the panorama is made up of more than 16 providers of telecommunications networks and services.
Here are companies such as: Claro, Tigo-Une, Telefónica, Ufinet, ETB, InterNexa, Azteca, Columbus Networks, Media Commerce, Edatel, Century Link, Sun Comunicaciones, Cablemas, Internet TV Promoter, Emcali, TV Azteca branch, among other companies. Regarding the advanced territory in the use of fiber optics in the country, companies such as Claro, ETB and Telefónica have presented updated figures, with a cutoff of 2023 and their projections.
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According to Telefonica, mynorth total are 51 municipalities those who are connected to this technology and the company plans to reach 17 more during the rest of 2023.
“Movistar expects to close the year 2023 with about 4.9 million homes passed with fiber optics and with more than 1,200,000 customers connected to this technology.”, said Fabián Hernández, president CEO- Telefónica Movistar Colombia.
Claro Colombia, in turn, has indicated that it reaches 130 municipalities in the country with fiber optic coverage, which allows the company to connect 9,800,000 clients with this technology. Among its expectations, 2023 is closed with 135 municipalities connected with fiber.
Lastly, the company ETB recently announced that it reached two million homes with access to the fiber optic network in Bogotá, which is equivalent to “80% of the homes in the capital”.
As the company has specified, its plan is to consolidate the offer in the capital and continue migrating its technology to fiber in the coming years.
(See: MinTIC opens call for radioelectric spectrum permits).
JOHANA PAOLA MUÑOZ LOURDY
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