By 2014, Ecuador plans to have broadband increase significantly, with small and medium businesses (SMB) and major rural area connnect to broadband, as well as increased residential coverage by 2015, triple the number of connections to broadband by 2016 and achieve at least 75% of the Ecuadorian population with access to broadband by 2017. The country’s National Broadband Plan lays out these goals.
Jaime Ruiz Guerrero, the Ecuadorian Minister of Telecommunication and Information Society, announced public policies in order to bring broadband access to the country, especially in technologically underserved and isolated areas. The National Broadband Plan is part of the Ecuador Digital 2.0 plan and includes plans for universal access, digital readiness and online government.
The Plan has three programcomponents: the first one is the deployment of infrastructure and market conditions for broadband; the second focuses on efficient management of resources and quality for broadband; and the third is related to broadband and social responsibility environment.
According to the government, implementing these policies and strategies will raise mobile broadband and mobile-phone penetration. Today, Ecuador has an Internet rate penetration of 29.49%. The country counts almost 4.25 million Internet users, with most of them (4.14 million) have 128/256 kbps speeds. Mobile phone penetration has increased from 63.3% in 2006 to 108% today.
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