Mobile network ecosystem
4G services are available in Guatemala but the bandwidth allocated to this service is limited and few devices can navigate at this speed. The AWS band, which could be used to provide more bandwidth and Internet load capacity, belongs to the State and current laws prevent it from being auctioned. The government offered to work on these legal contradictions and plans to bring it to auction in 2019.
The study presented by Affordable Internet Alliance’s indicates that 1 gigabyte of Internet costs 4.2 percent of an average monthly income per capita. On the other hand, a study prepared by the Directorate for Latin America and the Caribbean of 5G Americas indicates that, on average, Guatemalans consume only 400 megabytes per month. For comparison, this means that a Guatemalan can only watch five YouTube videos of average quality each month, then lose access to the Internet. For this reason people tend to limit the use of data and browse mainly in apps with free temporary access.
Due to an unresolved legal problem, the government has not auctioned the necessary frequencies and Guatemalans still don’t have access to a better Internet quality.