LatAm connectivity still needs policies for inclusion, says Facebook

Latin America is moving fast in terms of connectivity and access to the internet, but sound policies are still needed to promote relevance and inclusion, Facebook's global head of connectivity Robert Pepper told regional ICT officials at Cartagena's eLAC 2018 information summit.

Metrics such as gender equality show Latin America ahead of the global pack, as 85% of women said they used internet "several times a day," compared to 74% of the male population, Pepper said during a presentation at the three-day ECLAC summit. But the region's overall frequency of use remains at the lower end, "which is cause for worry."

"In 80% of the countries there are more men than women connected to the internet. You'll see Latin America has some good news on this subject," he said, discussing the results of the 86 country-wide Inclusive Internet Index for 2018, commissioned by Facebook to The Economist Intelligence Unit.

The region, while ahead of the pack in terms of mobile subscriptions, with a density of 114.7 lines per 100 inhabitants, vs 107.9% for the world at large, still shows a large gap between 2G mobile networks -used mostly for voice and text messages - and broadband 4G networks.

While 95% of the region's population is covered by 2G networks, only 56.9% are covered by the faster 4G networks, compared with a global measurement of 60.8% and North America's 98.6% figure.

And residential access is still lagging, with 42.3% of households online, vs 53.4% for the world. "Connectivity, access to the internet, is essential as the enabler for all the applications ... It is just not acceptable that less than half of households are connected in the region."

The region needs "policies (not just regulation) that lower costs, speed deployment - e.g., more spectrum/reduce cost," as well as policies to foster local content, e-government services and trust, he said in his presentation.