A few years ago, several media outlets replicated a note from the Speedtest platform stating that Internet speeds in Cuba were among the best in Latin America. The report said it was the second fastest in the region at 28Mbps, surpassed only by Uruguay.
Reputable newspapers such as the BBC published the “surprising” analysis, but left in doubt some parameters that had not been taken into account, such as “other key components of internet quality, curtailments, prices or so-called latency; that is, the response capacity of the network to our request”.
On that occasion, in the last update of January 2023, the same platform ranked Cuba among the worst in the world. Based on this global ranking, these locations must have at least 300 unique mobile or fixed broadband user results to qualify in any of the categories.
Cuba was ranked 140th for quality of internet via mobile data and 178th in the world for landline connection. The best of Latin America and even the world is still Chile. The frequent complaints from users in Cuba support this update from the renowned Speedtest website.
INTERNET SPEED IN CUBA
Recently, the journalist José Raúl Concepción, who covers internet connection problems, presented an example that confirms the poor quality of internet on the island. It used the measurement performed by the Fonoma platform, dedicated mainly to phone top-ups, using a larger sample with specifics in 3G and 4G networks.
“The tests carried out with 4G gave a result of 19.94 Mbps, while those of 3G were only 2.11 Mbps,” confirmed the analysis. “The maximum speed reported during the day with 4G was 77.30 Mbit/s, reached with an Iphone in the municipality of Playa at 12:30 p.m.,” he added.
Meanwhile, those users connecting to 3G will have to contend with a maximum speed of 2.11Mbps, well below the international average. All of this suggests that Cuba would indeed take the worst positions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In worse circumstances, the Nautahogar service, the fixed line connections from home, with a very low connection speed of 1.94 Mbit/s. Currently, the only nation to exceed that number is Afghanistan, which has a slower connection of 1.74.
Internet speed in Cuba