Analysis of internet access and coverage programs presented by the

2018-2022 ICT plan “The digital future belongs to everyone"

……………………………………

Análisis de los programas de acceso y cobertura de internet presentados por el plan TIC

2018-2022 “El futuro digital es de todos”

Leonardo Lara, Jesús

Moreno Barrera, Maritza Constanza

ABSTRACT

Information and communication technologies

have become one of the main instruments for

the development and improvement of people’s

quality of life, especially the access and use of

the Internet as a tool for economic,

educational and social growth. This document

carries out an analysis of the 2018-2022 ICT

Plan “The digital future belongs to everyone”,

focusing on the identification of key points

within the government policy and its

compliance, according to the ministry´s

management, and identifying how these

politics manage to reduce the digital divide in

our country.

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals

(SDG), National Planning Department, Digital

divide, information and communication

technologies, Internet.

RESUMEN

Received: November 23, 2021

Approved: December 08, 2021

…………………………………….

Universidad de Cundinamarca

jleonardolara@ucundinamrca.edu.co

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7505-9643

Master in ICT Management

ECCI University

Bogotá D.C. - Colombia

maritzac.morenob@ecci.edu.co

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2422-

4485

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Las tecnologías de la información y las

comunicaciones se han convertido en uno de

los principales instrumentos para el

desarrollo y el mejoramiento de la calidad de

vida de las personas, más especialmente el

acceso y uso de la internet como herramienta

de crecimiento económico, educativo y social.

En este documento se realiza un análisis del

Plan TIC 2018-2022 “El futuro digital es de

todos”, se centra en la identificación de

puntos clave dentro de la política de gobierno

y el cumplimiento de esta, según han sido los

informes de gestión del ministerio de las TIC

en estos dos años de gobierno, dando un

análisis cualitativo de la gestión e

identificando como estas políticas logran

disminuir la brecha digital en nuestro país.

Palabras clave: Objetivos de desarrollo

Sostenible (ODS), departamento de planeación

nacional (DPN), brecha digital, tecnologías de

la información y las comunicaciones, Internet.

Introduction

This document intends to emphasize the axis on digital social inclusion exposed in

the 2018-2022 ICT plan “The digital future belongs to everyone", specifically in the

programs and projects that aim to expand coverage and access to the Internet at a

national level. A point of great importance because it is based on reducing levels of

social inequality, increasing capacity and coverage that, ultimately, would produce

economic growth, provide job opportunities and expand communication channels in

places where coverage is reduced or non-existent (González, 2014).

Based on this, it is intended to expose the contextual situation that the Government

faced in 2018 based on the indicators described in the Plan, select the different

programs and projects that seek to expand the coverage of internet access and, finally,

focus on the results so far existing in the country. To this extent, the work seeks 1) to

analyze the policies that the government of Iván Duque has developed in terms of its

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compliance and implementation of internet coverage at the national level, 2) to

consider its impact, in reference to its scope and relevance in the current Colombian

context, and 3) Consider whether or not the path followed by the government of Iván

Duque should be modified in order to offer recommendations for the coming 2022-

2026 administration.

In this way, what are the advances and challenges of the 2018-2022 ICT Plan "The

digital future belongs to everyone" regarding the access and use of the internet at the

national level exposed in the results presented by the government until the end of the

first semester of 2020? To respond this, the advances presented by the 2018-2022

ICT Plan “The digital future belongs to everyone" regarding the possession and use of

the Internet, based on the results delivered by the government of Iván Duque during

the first half of 2020 were analyzed.

Materials and methods

This research is descriptive in nature, using a qualitative methodology, applying the

documentary analysis technique and developing script analysis as a tool. Once the

information was obtained, its analysis was carried out.

The Government of Iván Duque presented the 2018-2022 ICT Plan "The digital

future belongs to everyone", where it exposes four main axes that are projected to be

delivered at the end of the four-year period: an ICT environment axis for digital

development, which seeks to build the bases to massify ICT to 100% of the

Colombian population; a second axis of digital social inclusion, where it intends to

concentrate an inclusive and territorial approach of access to ICTs; a third axis of

citizens and households empowered by the digital environment to promote a

productive, entrepreneurial and safe sector; and, finally, the axis of sectoral and

territorial digital transformation, where it seeks to articulate the private and public

sectors in search of entrepreneurship of projects by the nation, as well as the

digitization of public procedures.

The ICT plan has as its fundamental objective to increase the coverage and use of

information technologies in the national territory. This by generating the

infrastructure and key resources to achieve that said objective. During the plan, the

importance of expanding internet coverage in the different spaces at the national

level is insisted on, all with the great need to reduce the digital divide that exists in

Colombia (Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, 2018).

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In this section, the essential points, concepts and relevant aspects will be explained,

as well as the advantages provided by the use of the Internet in areas such as

teaching and learning. All these topics are necessary to broaden their interpretation

for the purpose of this document.

In 2015, the member states of the United Nations approved 17 sustainable

development goals to be achieved by 2030, being the main ones the elimination of

poverty, the fight against climate change, improve education, women's equality,

defense of the environment, economic growth, among other (United Nations, 2015).

As mentioned above, the ICT Plan 2018-2022, The Digital Future, is immersed in

these objectives. If point 9 called "Industry, innovation and infrastructure" is

observed, it is an indicator that reflects how access to the internet in homes has

greater importance as a source of development and quality of life for people,

expressed in the opportunities to which they can access (Ministry of Information

Technology and Communications, 2018).

Likewise, it was determined by the National Planning Department (DNP) in its study

of the impact of internet speed on GDP per capita. They affirmed that there are

certain benefits in the use and appropriation of ICTs that increases productivity,

number of employees and level of income per household, as well as the use of the

Internet service and the digital environment help to improve of people's quality of

life (National Planning Department (DNP), 2018). This is how the DNP determines a

correlation between internet penetration and GDP growth, while estimates are that

an increase of 1 Mbps would lead to a 1.6% growth increase in GDP per capita

(National Planning Department (DNP), 2018). At the same time, the DNP

determines a correlation between internet coverage and the level of poverty, which

suggests that the departments with lower internet coverage have a higher poverty

index, showing the importance of access to this service by of these regions depicted

in figure 2.

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Figure 1. Relationship between poverty and internet penetration, source (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2018).

Now, it is pertinent to expand on the interpretation of some central concepts in this

work whose theoretical development must be specified.

The Plan recognizes the existence of a digital gap in the country. This is marked not

only by populations far from the big cities, but also by the lack of clear policies that

allow integration with the regions. This central term of digital divide does not have

an exact date for its application, and its antecedents date back to the 1990s, where it

was used in a publication of the National Telecommunications and Information

Department of Commerce in the United States, but it commonly refers to the gap

between those who have and those who do not have access to new forms of

information technology (van Dijk, 2006). In other words, this digital divide

corresponds to an inequality that occurs due to the impossibility of having access to

information, knowledge and education through the interaction of technological tools

(Peña Gil, Cuartas Castro, & Tarazona Bermúdez, 2017). This, at the same time,

denotes a division between the population: those who have adequate access, and

those who do not have access or have a deficiency of computers, internet or other

devices that help connectivity (Soomro, Kale, Curtis, Akcaoglu, & Bernstein, 2020).

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This gap is also related to three important factors: knowledge, which is the ability to

understand the language of technology, being familiar with the specific terminology;

skills, that is, what the individual can do with the internet; and attitudes, which are

the factor that involves human behavior, thus being the basic skills for the use of the

Internet (Barbosa Mota & Cilento, 2020).

To the above, it must be added that the digital divide has an important additional

element for the economy of a society: digital competence. This concept refers to the

ability that people can have to effectively use ICT at work, educational, leisure and

citizen participation fields (Cañón Rodríguez, Grande de Prado, & Cantón Mayo,

2016). That is to say, focus through the needs, objectives and particularities of each

environment and person, a different purpose of what their use of the Internet in its

different dimensions can become. Uniting the two concepts, it is possible to

understand that the digital gap and competition lead countries with less access to

technologies, in this case Internet access, to be further and further from being able to

be in a line of industrial growth (Díaz Lazo , Pérez Gutiérrez, & Florido Bacallao,

2011). Although access to these technologies has been growing in recent years, it is

still evident that, in Latin America, it is far below from other continents. According to

data from the Internet World Stats (figure 3), the Internet access rate in Europe is

87.2% while in North America it is 94.6%; in contrast, Latin America and the

Caribbean have a coverage rate of 68.9% (IBERDROLA, sf) (Barbosa Mota & Cilento,

2020).

Figure 2. Map of the number of users and Internet coverage in the world (IBERDROLA, sf)

(Barbosa Mota & Cilento, 2020).

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This explains another concept that is implicit in the digital balance and that goes

against the digital divide: accessibility. As seen in the digital gap, one of the main

problems is the accessibility to technological resources by the population (Marín ,

Barragán Martínez , & G. Zaballos , 2014), which must be assumed a key point in the

agenda of governments such as Colombia to the extent that they help reduce the deep

social inequality in which the country finds itself (Rivera Escobar, 2016). Therefore,

it is pertinent to focus on the priority of having accessibility to ICTs and, particularly,

to the Internet, as fundamental pillars of economic and social development in the

countries.

When talking about the digital divide, the conclusion of an existing inequality,

deficiency and/or lack of access to resources or ICTs devices is reached(Gómez

Navarro, Alvarado López, Martínez Domínguez, & Díaz de León Castañeda, 2018). If

the assumption of the existence of digital equity between the various authors is

reached, it is possible to equally develop the capacities of an entire population. This

development is created by education, and it returns to the use of the Internet and

access to ICT as a basis for learning (Villota García, Zamora López, & Llanga Vargas,

2019).

Based on the above, education is one of the sectors of a society that benefits most

from the digital balance and this access to ICTs. With technological advances at the

level of ICTs in recent years, progress has been seen in the creation of

communication spaces that allow experiences not previously thought of, such as

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distance, online or blended learning, in which the Internet is the medium that allows

this type of teaching and learning (Ferro Soto, Martínez Senra, & Otero Neira, 2009).

This is one of the most popular advantages in teaching and learning: the breaking of

time-space barriers in activities. This means that it is not necessary to have a physical

space to teach a class: it takes place in cyberspace, allowing the development of

activities at different times and even in different geographical positions (Díaz Levicoy,

2013). As Selwyn points out, "both [the] internet and education have as their

objective the exchange of information, communication and the creation of

knowledge" (2014).

It can also be seen as another very important advantage the communication between

the different actors. ICTs have provided the possibility of having an interaction that

can be synchronous —in classes, communications, calls (Castro, Guzmán, & Casado,

2007)—, and asynchronous —given by contact through emails, for consultations or

doubts, due to recorded classes that can be viewed at any time (Barberà & Badia,

2005)—; and at the same time it favors interaction among students, favoring

cooperative learning (Ferro Soto, Martínez Senra, & Otero Neira, 2009).

Finally, one of the most notable advantages is access to knowledge. The rise of the

internet in recent years has led to the possibility of having all kinds of knowledge

content, information, entertainment and even financial data online (Rojo Villada,

2008). Public access may be granted by a third party but, in the end, these contents

are on the network and can be accessed from anywhere thanks to the Internet service.

This is how networks become a space with meaning for students, to the extent that

they can establish their own connections, manage to stay informed of what is

happening, and allow them to be in constant transformation, just as it happens in

cyberspace. Information and the solution to the problems cannot be located in a

single person but in networks of people who seek to quickly create connections to

achieve a more global vision of the problem”(Cabero Almenara & Llorente Cejudo,

2015). The foregoing shows how knowledge is precisely created by this connection of

people through the Internet and how this generates more value these days.

Technological innovations and the rise of the Internet have led to the creation of new

market niches and the strengthening of others. Already existing sectors have grown

thanks to the use of the Internet, either to improve their services or to adapt them to

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new technologies. This is how Schiller highlights it: "all sectors have made increasing

use of the Internet, to the point that investments by US companies in information

technology and communications have come to constitute the bulk of corporate

capital investment as a whole" ( 2013). The internet has become an engine of

technological change in companies, that is, thanks to the speed of growth of the

internet and the emerging technologies associated with it that companies have been

innovating to keep up with technological advances (Gonzalez, 2014).

This innovation has given rise to concept changes, for example, the implementation

of IoT (Internet of things) in agriculture. This concept refers to “the extension of

network connectivity and computing capacity to objects, devices, sensors and

elements that are not usually considered computers” (Rose, Eldridge, & Chapin,

2015). With the above, it is possible to position the use of the Internet one step

beyond as a means for technological advancement. This is how in the study carried

out in some cases in Colombia where the IoT has been used to carry out automation,

control and monitoring processes of crops and irrigation systems, it led to

demonstrate that access to new technologies improves the processes of development

in the rural sector (Tovar Soto, Solórzano Suárez, Badillo Rodríguez, & Rodríguez

Cainaba, 2019).

As shown by The Internet Society (2015), the Internet has become a source of access

to new information for various sectors such as agriculture, health, education and

business, being a sustainable source of development for economies.

Results

In the specific case of Colombia, the Tic Plan began to structure the policy based on

the data present until the first half of 2018, which reflected a fixed internet coverage

rate at the national level of 40.5% of households in the country, with 52.7% of

internet access via mobile services (Ministry of Information Technology and

Communications, 2018). Regarding the difference between the coverage of municipal

capitals and the populated and dispersed rural centers, in the first one there is a

coverage in households of 50.8, while in the second only 4.3% is found (Ministry of

Information Technologies and Communications, 2018).

Figure 3. Coverage of the Internet in households (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2018)

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Now, regarding the difference in access among socioeconomic strata, the following

data can be found: strata 1, 2 and 3 with a coverage of 20.5, 39.3, 47.3% respectively,

while strata 4, 5 and 6, 85.4, 92.8, 99.8% is found at the national level (Ministry of

Information Technology and Communications, 2018).

The digital gap can be found in at least three different scenarios: half of the

population does not have access to the internet, neither fixed nor mobile; in the rural

sector, coverage is minimal with respect to the municipal capitals and main cities;

and, finally, there is a clear difference present among socioeconomic strata. These

are the bases of the Plan and, therefore, it is necessary to observe what strategies

were proposed in order to reduce this digital divide.

Figure 4. Fixed Internet coverage by Strata (Ministry of Information and Communication

Technologies, 2018)

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One of the key pillars of the ICT Plan is called “Digital Social Inclusion”, which

basically consists of massifying and creating a universal internet access service. This

program "aims to reduce the deficit of last-mile networks throughout the country,

and increase Internet service coverage, mainly in strata 1 and 2" (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2018). It has a focus on Social

Interest Housing, low Sisbén scores with coverage for 664 municipalities.

The objective of this initiative is to guarantee the completion of the deployment of

the high-speed network and the associated connectivity offer. Initially, it was

planned to have the projects awarded by December 2019; however, as evidenced in

the Court Report to Congress up to the first semester of 2020 (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2020): In 2019, the contractor had

as a goal the installation of 270 fixed Internet accesses to homes, however, the

contractor did not deliver the scheduled installations. Therefore, the alleged non-

compliance was notified to the legal advisory office of the MinTIC. No progress was

made on the goal for the year. Although they justify an advance made to 47

municipal capitals with a scope for 4,037 populated centers for public internet access,

it is not a project that is finished (Ministry of Information and Communication

Technologies, 2020). That is, 1. There is still a dissolved goal without concrete

progress and 2. The coverage of this ongoing project would not provide coverage in

scattered rural areas nor does it propose to distribute fixed internet, with which the

stability and consolidation of long-term community projects, but it is aimed at

mobile internet until the contract ends in 2023 (Ministry of Information Technology

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and Communications, 2020). This program, meanwhile, is not being developed or

carried out efficiently.

Figure 5. Urban Digital Zones, by 2020, taken from the report to Congress (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2020)

Along the same lines, it was observed how the government continued with the

transition of Wi-Fi Zones through the Urban Digital Zones, which is a project that

seeks to provide free access to Wi-Fi in the different cities at the national level,

mainly focused on urban areas . The goal set was 840 digital Zones in 705

municipalities, and they have progressed to 522 Zones in 451 municipalities as of

May 31, 2020. It can be said that this is one of the most illustrative advances, but that

it will be valid until August 2023, and its focus is public Wi-Fi, not directly to families

-who may not have devices to access it-, nor to scattered rural areas (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2020).

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During the reporting period, this initiative achieved the installation of 1,000 rural

digital zones and progress was made in the preparation of 22 field studies for the

installation of 17 Wi-Fi zones in San Andrés and 5 in Providencia. Similarly, the

operation of 1,231 Digital Kiosks of Phase 3 of the project was extended until the end

of 2019 (Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, 2020).

This initiative aims to contribute to closing the digital gap through the deployment of

infrastructure based on supply and demand. During 2019, this initiative carried out

the structuring and selection of 2 contractors to execute the projects of the demand

incentives line and 9, to execute the projects of the supply incentives line. This was

achieved through the following projects:

Demand incentives - Phase 1: The objective of this is to promote Internet coverage

through the deployment of access network deployments. In 2020 there is a goal of 5

commercialization plans which have already been delivered, and it is expected to

meet the goal of installing 210,000 accesses in homes within the framework of the

IDMF1 Project (incentives for massive demand for phase 1), of which only 12,574

households have been connected, which is equivalent to 5.9% of the total. This shows

that the project is far from reaching the goal since this first phase is designed for

municipalities where there are mature and greater competition, which proposes an

optimal environment for expanding coverage (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2020).

Demand incentives - Phase 2: This phase is designed for municipalities that require

public intervention for mass access, due to population density rates. In this case, the

goal was the installation of 145,000 new subscribers in 216 municipalities and as of

2020, the installation of 57,370 was planned and only 2,143 homes have been

connected, which is equivalent to 3.73% progress in what was projected.

Supply incentives: As projected in the ICT Plan, resources would be allocated for

three projects: 1) Deployment of telecommunications networks, 2) Financing of

access and last-mile networks, strengthening the technical and operational capacity

of providers, and 3) planning deploy infrastructure for the connectivity of users of

social interest housing delivered in the last two years.

Unfortunately, this is one of the plans that is furthest from effective execution since it

was expected to comply with the installation of 33,887 that same year according to

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the 2020 congress report, but only 15 access documents have been delivered to

households of the 150,000 budgeted in the ICT plan.

The objective of this initiative is to promote the use and appropriation of ICTs by

citizens and homes, seeking to do so in a safe and responsible manner in the country.

Among the progress made, the strengthening of intervention in different sectors of

society in terms of promoting the use and appropriation of ICTs is highlighted.

During 2019, inclusion was important, especially for women and older adults, as well

as children and adolescents, and the population with disabilities. This was achieved

through projects such as Digital Citizenship (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2020). This project focuses on the certification of

digital skills in cities. It has Colombian scopes over 13 years old users, through the

provision of 33 virtual courses in 12 skills.

During the reported period, 106,650 training courses in digital skills were carried out,

and 3,628 people with disabilities were trained in the inclusion of the use of ICTs.

Pre-contractual processes are currently being carried out to virtually restart the

training offer in 2020 (Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies,

2020).

● The national government, through the Ministry of ICT, delivers a

quarterly bulletin where it discloses historical data on

telecommunications services in Colombia (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2021). Among the services are: fixed

internet access, mobile internet access, fixed telephony, mobile

telephony.

Figure 6. Fixed internet accesses (millions) (Ministry of Information and Communication

Technologies, 2021)

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Discussion

Bearing in mind that only Internet access is the responsibility of this work, and as a

precedent that this bulletin is created from the data of the providers of

telecommunications networks and services in Colombia (Data reported by the

providers of networks and services to Colombia TIC. Date of consultation: March 29,

2021), the following data was found: in the case of fixed internet accesses, a very

important growth of connections can be observed within the period between the

fourth quarter of 2019 and the same period 2021. According to government figures,

the growth has been 790 thousand new accesses in relation to the previous period,

while in the fourth quarter of 2019 there were only 260 thousand new users

compared to the period of 2018, which indicates an increase of 3 times the users who

entered new in previous years (Ministry of Information Technologies and

Communications, 2021).

Figure 7. National average download speed (Mbps) (Ministry of Information Technology

and Communications, 2021)

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Another key point has been the growth of the national average download speed for

fixed internet. The bulletin indicates that the growth has been more than 15 Mbps in

the last year, a very important figure. But unfortunately this figure contrasts with the

same data by departments (Figure 9). In this graph we can see that, in the

departments that historically present a greater digital divide and a lower rate of

departmental innovation (Ministry of Information Technology and Communications,

2018), they are the ones with lower download speeds.

Figure 8. Average download speed in the residential segment by department (Mbps)

(Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, 2021)

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Figure 9. Average download speed per stratum (Mbps) (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2021)

In the case of the average download speed on fixed internet by socioeconomic strata,

there has been a significant increase. According to the bulletin, for stratum 2 there is

a double increase in speed, going from 11.2 Mbps in 2019 to 22.1 Mbps in 2020.

Likewise, in stratum 3, the speed went from 20.9 to 41, 3 Mbps (Ministry of

Information and Communication Technologies, 2021).

For the cases of mobile internet we have also seen a very important increase. The

figure reaches 32.5 million internet accesses, registering 1.6 million more than in the

previous period (Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, 2021).

We should also note that, in the case of Internet by subscription, there was an

increase of about 970 thousand subscribers, reaching 13.56 million subscribers in

Colombia (Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, 2021).

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Figure 10. Mobile Internet accesses (millions) (Ministry of Information and Communication

Technologies, 2021)

Figure 11. Accesses by mobile Internet subscription (millions) (Ministry of Information

Technologies and Communications, 2021)

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The national government had proposed a complete section for San Andrés in the ICT

Plan, in which a public intervention was contemplated to include points such as free

community access through public institutions, actions to improve the quality and

coverage of the provision of mobile Internet service, expansion of transport capacity,

among others (Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, 2018). In

the management report to congress, the ICT ministry and the government focus on

the following actions carried out to date (Ministry of Information and

Communication Technologies, 2020):

●

The TV ISLA contractor delivers 3 documents with the planning for the

installation of Wi-Fi Zones and 22 field studies, complying with what

was planned.

●

For the sustainable universal access project, valid from 2020, there are

public internet access solutions in 22 sites, through Wi-Fi Zones.

For the social connectivity plan, there are 12 public institutions and battalions,

connected through the Digital Kiosks project.

5. Conclusions

Having as support the management report to the Congress of the Republic, presented

by the ICT Ministry, and contrasting it with the objectives set out in the ICT Plan

2018-2020, several key points were found. In the first place, the government has

maintained the policies of the previous government, giving continuity that

guarantees free internet access in public places. This through the Urban Digital

Zones (formerly called Wifi Zones), a project that has 62.14% of the projected points

in operation (522 of 840). Likewise, giving continuity to the Vive Digital Kiosks

project, for rural areas.

It is recognized that the government has complied with the initiative of rural digital

zones, with the installation of 1000 zones. In addition to the above, it advanced in the

study for the installation of other 17 Wi-Fi Zones in San Andrés and 5 in Providencia.

On the other hand, in relation to the Demand Incentives initiative, the initial

government proposal divided the objective into two phases, one for municipalities

where there were mature market conditions and unsatisfied needs, and another

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where public intervention was required to achieve the overcrowding of services. This

point lacks progress, because for phase 1 —despite the fact that it has 12,574 homes

installed and 5 commercialization plans— it only has an advance of 5.9%, taking into

account that the idea of government intervention is to provide affordable rates and

thus expand coverage. For the second phase we see a similar scenario, only 3.73% of

what was planned for 2020. At this point, more commitment is needed from the two

actors, the government as provider of policies that allow expanding coverage and

private telecommunications service companies to expand the networks in these

municipalities that require access.

On the other hand, the quarterly bulletin delivered by the ICT Ministry and the

national government for the fourth quarter of 2020, which was published in April of

this year, highlights that fixed internet connections and the average download speed

have increased significantly in the last year, but this increase has been reflected only

in the main departments, especially in Bogotá. But in departments such as San

Andrés, Amazonas, Vichada and Guainía, the download speed is practically

insignificant and the most worrying thing is that, in the case of San Andrés, there was

a numeral in the ICT Plan, which has been insufficient to date of the report.

This means that one of the largest debts at the investment level and, in terms of

results, is San Andrés. The department is among those with the worst download

speed indexes in the country and, additionally, the actions carried out do not have a

significant impact, because Wifi Zones and Kiosks are strategies that already came

from the previous government. Additionally, the Wi-Fi Kiosks were established

mostly in battalions or affluent areas, which does not translate into a benefit for the

most vulnerable population.

This is how this document encourages the efforts made by the government to provide

Internet access in the country, a task that is necessary for economic development, but

suggests that additional activities to guarantee that this money invested can have a

stable scope and significantly affect the comprehensive development of the most

isolated regions of the country. This means that the projects should not be limited to

being an action of temporary Internet access positions reduced to a term contract of

the government in office. Instead, one should choose to promote productive

initiatives from below, led by people from the region, linked to training, workshops

and activities carried out from and for the communities. These actions will provide

stability and enhance economic development.

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126

Likewise, it is important to influence on the next presidential candidates, as well as

on the government plan to be carried out from the year 2022, so that agendas

prioritize products and investment in remote or dispersed rural areas of the country.

It is there that efforts should really be made to locate stable Internet stations for the

communities, which focus on dignifying people's lives, guaranteeing them

communication, and promoting new forms of economic development that are useful

according to the context. This joint strategy should be intertwined with the

Colombian state's commitment to building a stable and lasting peace, because it can

be an economic alternative in areas of armed conflict and where efforts are being

made to rebuild economic and social ties.

In other words, the interest must be directed towards the construction of ways of life

and exits towards a market with potential, which can perfectly be taken advantage of

by the citizens as long as there is a commitment on the part of the institutions and

public representatives. This is how strategies should prioritize increasing the number

of stable paths to development and not highlighting thousands of short-range actions

with little socioeconomic impact.

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