Horizontal bar chart comparing median internet speed by country, showing Chile has significantly faster internet than the world median | Sources: Speedtest.net, Latinometrics
The Internet Speed in Chile is About 198% Faster Than Yours

VTR is Chile’s largest provider of home internet access. Last year, it set on a mission to democratize fiber optic in the country with some incentives from the government’s Telecom authority, Subtel. Fiber optic is currently the best available technology for high-speed broadband internet and is primarily manufactured in the US, Japan, and China.

According to Subtel, from October 2020 to October 2021, 4,425 km of fiber optic was installed. Today, 45% of broadband connections in Chile use the technology, and the median speed has doubled from last year. At 173 Mbps, Chile’s median speed is the world’s second-fastest, next only to Singapore.

The rest of Latin America has some catching up to do. Only four countries in the region have a median speed above the world’s average. Still, much progress has been made in the connectivity front. More than 66% of Latin Americans used the internet regularly by 2018.