MAP > Internet Providers in Argentina

Argentina has got an advanced telecom infrastructure through a very considerable investment to be able to update the services in rural areas. To be able to meet the pent up high demand for the telecom services, the government has gone on and embarked on the large scale National Broadband schedule. In August of 2016, state-owned infrastructure operator namely ARSAT launched the project to be able to extend the broadband services to some 1200 rural communities. By the mid-2018, the project was three-quarters complete. Despite there being some numerous operators licensed to offer services, there has remained insufficient competition. Provision of broadband, as well as the mobile services, have been dominated by the few key players, and this includes Telecom Argentina, Movistar, and Claro. Telecom Argentina and the Movistar have dominated the broadband sector. The market has seen a good consolidation after the Telecom Argentina acquired Cablevision, cable broadband unit of the Grupo Clarin, in the year 2018 on January.

The Grupo Clarin gets to retain the interest in the mobile segment following the January 2016 acquisition of the Nextel Argentina. The Mobile penetration is close to 138% with a small fall in a number of the subscribers in recent years following a long period of the steady growth. Many of the Argentineans usually owns over one SIM Cards through the pricing competition among the operators has been able to reduce the incentive for the multiple SIM Card ownership. The Claro, The Telecom Personal and the Movistar closely compete in market, together with the Nextel Argentina having a very small market share. Regulator has been able to encourage the market entry of the additional MVNOs to be able to increase the competition. The significant improvements to the capacity of the mobile networks have been anticipated during next few years following the auction of the spectrum in 700 MHz and the 1700-2100 MHz bands, that got to increase available spectrum for the operators to the 380 MHz. Also, regulators have been aiming to reassign the 600MHz spectrum from the pay-TV services for the mobile broadband use.

Argentina has got one of highest broadband penetration rates ever in Latin America. Country’s economic as well as the political difficulties during last ten years have impacted on the sector investments, but there have been very steady enhancements in the recent quarters. A big tranch of the investment has been marked to increase the fiber networks beyond some areas of the main cities.