In one year, the fiber growth rate in Mexico increased by 68%, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Sóstenes Díaz, commissioner of the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT), the Mexican regulator, said that the ongoing investment in infrastructure of the operators in Mexico, that includes fiber optic development, impacted the number of internet connections and bandwidth.
The most recent IFT data indicates that in 2022, telecommunications operators reported an investment of 96,496.9 million pesos at current prices, of which 80,142.1 million pesos were invested in infrastructure.
"What we have seen is that there has been a growing investment in optical fiber. In Mexico, we now have 62% of connections with fiber optic, compared to 10 years ago when 68% were DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), which now stands at only 10%,” explained the commissioner to Telecom Review Americas.
Among OECD countries, Mexico is the third nation with the highest fiber growth and the first between Latin American countries.
In terms of percentage of fiber connections in total fixed broadband in Latin America, Mexico had 62.3%, just below Chile with 68.9%, and above OECD average.
This translates into an improvement in connection speeds, said the commissioner.
“The competition in the market has driven operators to invest. I believe that among fixed-line operators, there has been a lot of network duplication. This competitive push has led them to invest and improve their networks by deploying fiber optics. As a result, fixed speeds have increased”, mentioned Díaz.
In fact, 51% of the connections are 50 to 100 Mbps, a growth from 10 to 30 Mbps that Mexico had in 2020.
The effects of this investment caused an annual increase of 5% in the Fixed Broadband Service penetration. This places Mexico among the OECD member countries with the highest growth during the same period, ranking just below Chile with 6.8%, Slovakia with 6.3% and Turkey with 5.6%.