High-speed internet standards are increasing | Top Stories

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) raised the national benchmark to 100 Mbps for download speeds and 20 Mbps for upload, which would mean that some of Puerto Rico’s internet customers will no longer have high-speed service.

This new rule is an increase from the previous standard of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. On the other hand, they ruled that in the case of 5G services, they can be considered high speed if they offer 35 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

Wanda Pérez, president of the Puerto Rican Telecommunications Alliance (APT, in Spanish), reported that most of the island already has high-speed internet access, however, she acknowledged that this does not mean that all customers are subscribed to services that exceed the new FCC standards.

According to statistics from the Telecommunications Bureau (NET), by the end of 2023, there were a total of 4.1 million Internet subscribers in Puerto Rico, of which the majority (two million) subscribed to internet services between 1 Mbps to 5 Mbps.

However, it is difficult to discern how many customers have high-speed internet under the new standard, since 1.7 million (40%) have Internet between 5 Mbps and 100 mbps. However, only 360,824 (9%) subscribed to a service of more than 100 Mbps, exceeding the standards.

In addition, these 4.1 million include both mobile and fixed subscribers, of which 18% subscribe to fixed broadband (750,838), and 82% to mobile broadband.

For Pérez, the transition to higher speed internet is happening organically, as a result of the greater need that customers have today.

“People have obviously been trying to acquire better speeds, and more so when we use the internet now for everything. Sometimes it is used by many people in our home, even for work, so there has certainly been a tendency for customers to seek or even ask their provider for higher speeds,” said the president.

For his part, the president of Claro, Enrique Ortiz de Montellano, reported that the average speed of its entire customer base is 97 Mbps, and in fiber optic, which is more than 60% of its customers, is more than 150 Mbps.

A similar trend is also being experienced by Liberty. Giovanna Ramírez de Arellano, senior director of communications and corporate responsibility at Liberty, reported that more than 60% of its customers subscribe to speeds of 100 Mbps or more.

“The consumer has proven that fixed versus mobile broadband connection provides a more stable connection, in addition to being more secure, has more capacity and is faster,” said Ramírez de Arellano.

In the case of the company Neptuno, its president, Pedro Andrés, informed that currently less than 15% of its clients have internet speeds lower than FCC standards.

“Over 85% of customers opt for much higher speeds. Even if you look at all our new proposals, they don’t even start at 100 Mbps, they start at 125 Mbps, because people are looking for better quality options,” said the executive.

More towns have broadband access

This increase is based on standards now used in multiple federal and state programs, such as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Claro and Liberty executives, who are counting on $127 million to increase broadband service, reported that already approximately 800,000 homes have access to this technology.

“We are making rapid progress toward the goal set by the FCC for the year 2025. Our commitment is that by December 31 of that year, 60% of the homes in the municipalities under our responsibility will be connected to a minimum speed of 100 megabits downstream (download) and a minimum of 35 megabits upstream (upload). We have already exceeded our expectations by providing high-speed internet access in 26 of the 35 towns. We are confident that we will be able to connect 100% of homes and businesses ahead of schedule,” said Ortiz de Montellano.

Currently, over 650,000 homes and businesses have access to its fiber optic network, ranging from 100 megabytes to 1,000 megabytes download and 1,000 megabytes upload, which meets and exceeds FCC requirements.

For its part, Liberty has already met the goal set by the FCC, and are now primarily focused on the fiber and undergrounding construction project commitments.

“In 2023, we bring our ‘Fiber to the Home’ (FTTH) build-out standard to 50,000 homes. Currently, we have over 150,000 homes with FTTH access. This upgrade to FTTH, along with improvements to our hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) plant, provides access to 1G speeds to over two-thirds of our customers through FTTH or HFC,” said Ramírez de Arellano.