Latin America. A year after the pandemic forced almost everyone to adapt to remote work and education, Ciena conducted a survey that revealed that most people in the region are optimistic about the advantages of 5G and many believe that technology will help bridge the digital divide.
The survey was conducted among people living in six Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, in an effort to bring together perceptions around 5G and cloud-based applications and examine the related benefits.
The results were consistent across the region, especially with regard to respondents' interest in 5G-related issues, the impact of the pandemic on Internet service requirements, and the importance of cloud computing. Respondents cited "forced to work from home" (44%) and "studying from home" (41%), "family uses more bandwidth" (41%) and "entertainment consumes more data" (30%) among the reasons for needing better internet service.
"5G brings a lot – by providing ultra-fast connectivity, facilitating remote activities and enabling other technologies that we can all benefit from," said Fabio Medina, General Manager and Vice President of Sales, Latin America at Ciena. "People require high bandwidth, low latency and minimal service interruptions, and 5G is a key piece of this puzzle."
Respondents were also optimistic about the social contributions of technology, believing that "5G will help improve people's quality of life" (84%), will have a positive impact on the economy (56%), and that "5G will help bridge the digital divide by providing connectivity to more citizens" (85%). With the promise that 5G will connect cities and drive digital transformation like never before, Latin Americans see the development of smart cities as "very attractive" (81%). The opinions show a positive outlook towards 5G's contributions to innovation, as well as industrial production.
Other highlights of the survey are:
5G will benefit various sectors, including "communication" (80%), "remote education/study" (80%) and "remote work" (77%).
Latin Americans called 5G developments "very attractive," "faster downloads" (86 percent), "better video quality/stability" (85 percent) and "virtual reality/augmented reality development" (70 percent).
41% of Latin Americans believe they will have access to 5G within a year.
At least 80% of respondents stated that they "constantly" or "sometimes" have delay/latency/delay issues, poor audio/video quality, service interruptions, and file download delays when working with cloud-based applications.
80% of Latin Americans believe they require better Internet service, and 68% are willing to pay more for less delay in their Internet service.
When asked which device they would be willing to give up, nearly a third of survey participants answered: the "landline." On the contrary, if users had to choose to stay with a single device, Latin Americans chose their mobile phone forcefully (70%).
69% of respondents say they "trust" cloud-based applications.
64% of respondents strongly agree that new advances in telecommunications will lead to better levels of security of their private information.
Given the existing optimism, and the need and desire for fast speeds and low latency, there is no doubt that Latin America has much to look forward to when it comes to 5G deployment and the use of edge cloud applications.
About the "Connecting Latin America" Survey
Ciena commissioned independent polling firm Luis Costa & Asoc to conduct a survey of 6,000 citizens from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, evenly distributed among each of the countries' five largest cities. Responses distributed by gender, age, socioeconomic status and city of residence within each country were evaluated.
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