Ways of Internet Access in Latin America

(photo credit: Roland Soong)

There are many different sources of estimates of the number of Internet users in Latin America.  What is striking is how different they can be about what is seemingly the same group of people.  So is it the five million figure offered by one source? or the 24 million from another source?  

A large part of the problem in the disparity of size estimates has to do with differences in how 'Internet users in Latin America' are defined.  Generally speaking, before we evaluate any source, we would like to know ---

• What is meant by Latin America?  How many countries are included? Some of the key things to look for are:
  --- The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is not an independent country, but the population is primarily Spanish-speaking 
  --- The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean and not part of South, Central or North America, but Spanish is its language
  --- Cuba is usually not included, or else assumed to have only negligible number
  --- The Hispanic population living in the United States and Canada is larger than many Latin American countries
  --- Non-Latin countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean, such as Belize, Surname, Guyana, French Guinea, etc.
  --- Spain, Portugal and other Spanish/Portuguese-speaking countries are part of the Latin world
   
• Within each country, what does the estimate cover?  Is it the whole country?  Or is it just the major urban areas?  Quite often, these estimates come from large consumer surveys, which are usually conducted only in the major urban areas.  The rest of the country is either explicitly noted as 'unmeasured' or else 'guesstimated' based upon assumptions that are often unwarranted.  For example, the rural areas may be assumed to have no Internet access, but then how does Commandante Marcos send his e-greetings to the world?
   
• What is meant by the 'Internet'?  The Internet is a collection of services (world wide web, e-mail, internet relay chat, file transfer protocol, gopher and as well as proprietary intranet services), but does not include private bulletin boards.  An Internet user may have restrictions placed on their usage (e.g. company intranet only without the World Wide Web or external e-mail).
   
• What is meant by a 'user'?  Some of the key things to look for are:
  --- Is there a qualification period for the most recent use?  For example, is a user someone who has ever used the Internet? or who has used the Internet in the last 3 months?  or in the last 30 days?  or in the last 7 days? or since yesterday?
  --- Is there a minimum frequency qualification?  For example, a user may be someone who uses the Internet at least once a week?
  --- Is there a minimum amount of usage to qualify?  For example, a user may be someone who uses the Internet at least one hour per week?
   
• What types of Internet access methods are admissible to be counted as a user?  The most typical image of an Internet user is someone who owns a telephone modem-equipped computer at home, has an account with an Internet service provider and accesses the Internet by dialing up from home.  But there are other ways of accessing the Internet --- at the office, at school, at public access kiosks and using other people's equipment and accounts.

The purpose of this note is to discuss the different ways of accessing the Internet in Latin America.  We will refer to some survey data from the TGI Latina study.  This is a large consumer survey of 46,244 persons between the ages of 12 and 65 conducted during 1999-2000 in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela).  The measured universe consisted primarily of urban areas in these countries.  Within this sample, a total of 8,284 persons said that they have used the Internet, which is projected to a total of 15,617,000 persons in the measured universe.

These Internet users were then asked where they had accessed the Internet ---

• 39% of them said that they had used the Internet from home
• 35% of them said that they had used the Internet from work
• 24% of them said that they had used the Internet from school/college/university
• 11% of them said that they had used the Internet from other places (such as Internet cafés, public access kiosks, public libraries, hotels, airports, someone else's home or office, etc)

The sum of the above adds to more than 100% because people can access the Internet from more than one place.  The following table shows the inter-penetration of these different methods of access.  For example, among home users, 24% use the Internet at work, and so on.

(source:  TGI Latina 1999-2000)

This table shows that there is some duplication between home and work users, but the other two groups are more isolated.  

Why should we care about how people access the Internet?  There are a number of reasons.

First of all, this knowledge is useful to gauge the potential and actual market of access services.  These are completely different markets including these two large ones:

• the market for personal accounts at Internet service providers
• the market for business accounts at Internet services providers that may involve auxiliary services such as Internet firewalls, servers, backups, broadband services, e-commerce, etc.

People who use the Internet through these different means have different characteristics.  The following table shows their average age and sex compositions.  As might be expected, the school users are significantly younger.  The 'other place' users are also young.

(source:  TGI Latina 1999-2000)

The next table shows the recency and volume of usage for these different users.  The home user, who is most likely paying to have an Internet access account, is the heaviest user of the Internet.  The 'other place' users are the lightest users, since they either have to pay hourly rental fees or face limitations on their use (e.g. 30 minutes maximum at a public kiosk).

(source:  TGI Latina 1999-2000)

The last table shows a short list of activities that these people have engaged in during the past 30 days.  These users have vastly different needs from each other.

(source:  TGI Latina 1999-2000)

WWW REFERENCE

• Zona Latina's Internet directory

(posted by Roland Soong on 8/24/00)

(Return to Zona Latina's Home Page)