Latin America has made significant progress in internet connectivity—a very important driver of economic and social development—since telecommunications were liberalized in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Latin American citizens and businesses still face challenges related to current connectivity gaps and the readiness to compete in a global digital ecosystem. Facebook is intent on ensuring that citizens get high-quality internet at affordable prices by promoting several connectivity programs with the aim of “bringing more people online to a faster internet.” 

NERA was retained by Facebook to analyze the potential impact those connectivity programs could have on Latin American societies and economies. The team, led by NERA Associate Directors Dr. Bruno Soria and Veronica Irastorza, analyzed the connectivity programs launched by Facebook (alone or with other partners), assessed the results of the first implementations, and estimated their potential impact across the region. 

NERA concluded that Facebook’s connectivity programs address the bottlenecks to broadband development in Latin America. The report found that they have the potential to reduce the digital divide by prompting an additional 6% of Latin American citizens to connect to the internet, reduce the rural availability gap by extending broadband coverage to 29 million more people, increase the speed and quality of end-user broadband connections, and lower customer prices by more than USD 500 million per year. This would prompt productivity increases across the economy that could result in the creation of some 178,000 new jobs; increase regional GDP by several billion dollars; drive increases in e-education usage, company digitization, media pluralism, and local content creation; and prompt the incorporation of many informal companies and workers to the formal economy.