The state of play in the Dominican Republic’s telecoms market

The Dominican Republic ended last year with 1.1mn fixed internet connections, representing an increase of 23% from 2020 when the current administration began.

Fiber optics represented 42% of the fixed internet segment at the end of 2022, according to figures from sector regulator Indotel.

There were 499,128 fiber optic accesses, followed by copper (xDSL) and cable modem with 298,914 and 211,125, respectively.

Indotel said 35.2% of the lines had a speed between 10Mbps and 30Mbps, while 32.6% had speeds in the 4-10Mbps range.

Speeds greater than 30Mbps but below 100Mbps represented 13.9% of the total and 7% had speeds greater than 100Mbps.

Revenues from the fixed broadband segment amounted to 8.52bn pesos (US$154mn) last year.

MOBILE INTERNET

The country had 8.9mn active mobile internet accounts at the end of last year, up 24% from end-2020, according to Indotel. 

Of the total, 16.9% were corporate lines and 4G connections made up 72.8%.

The regulator tendered spectrum in 2021 for the deployment of 5G but has not yet disclosed figures for this technology.

Revenues from the mobile internet segment totaled 7.44bn pesos last year.

The Dominican Republic had 10.1mn mobile phone lines at the close of 2022.

FIXED TELEPHONE, PAY TV

At the end of last year there were 1.14mn fixed telephone lines.

Indotel reported 744,430 pay-TV connections, with the segment generating revenues of 4.80bn pesos.

The segment had an even distribution in terms of technologies, with 33.3% being cable modem, 32.3% corresponding to satellite or wireless, and 34.4% to IPTV.

MARKET SHARE

The country recorded 10.1mn fixed and mobile internet connections at end-2022.

Claro was the largest internet operator with more than 6mn lines. It was followed by Altice with 3.37mn and Viva with 486,587.

Indotel does not provide separate market share figures for fixed and mobile internet services.

Claro was also the leader in mobile telephony with 4.8mn prepaid and 1.4mn postpaid connections. And it had the largest pay-TV share with 451,116 lines.

Altice registered 2.4mn prepaid lines and 957,106 postpaid while the tally for Viva was 425,442 and 42,029, respectively.