Although Internet consumption in Latin American homes is relatively new compared to other types of services, in recent years its use has been changing and evolving rapidly. According to figures from Statist, Internet consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean has doubled in the last decade. In 2010, there were 200 million registered users and, by 2021, The number of inhabitants in the region with access to the network rose to 498 million.

But the increase in the number of people using the Internet is not the only change, but also the functions for which it is used. This causes the need to periodically review the Internet plans that each family or person hires. Although when choosing a plan it can be useful and sufficient, it is not exempt from becoming outdated in a short time and causing what is paid for that service to not end up being the most convenient. 

The first home Internet plans used to be contracted based on the amount of gigabytes that the user wanted to use monthly. The current trend, however, is turning towards unlimited consumption of gigabytes and focusing on the speed at which the Internet works. 

“When countries started to have internet networks, they used a measurement in gigabytes because each country had submarine cables that interconnected between countries and regions. These cables are quite expensive for a nation and, at the beginning, there was a quota of megabytes established for each country and this was distributed among what people spent,” he explains. Fredy León, Director of Digital Research and Development at Seguros SURA.

Currently, in most Latin American countries, Internet or telephone companies that provide Internet services no longer sell open plans, but rather the service is contracted in exchange for the payment of a fixed bill. In this sense, then, it is no longer possible to put together a personal or particular consumption plan,But there are certain ways to control each person's consumption in order to choose the plan that best suits their needs. 

What do we use the Internet for?

The world is changing and with it the habits of users. Before, the Internet was used for instant messaging applications or to find information on search engines, but today the habits are different. 

The instant messaging app WhatsApp, for example, has more than 2,000 billion users worldwide. According to figures from Hootsuite, social media users grew by 227 million over the past year, reaching a total of 4,700 billion at the beginning of July 2022, representing 59% of the total world populationInternet and social media user numbers also saw impressive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Current plans must be unlimited because we use the Internet for everything. To use social media, to watch streaming shows, videos on YouTube, upload videos to TikTok or Instagram reels and even to telework. All of this has made the consumption of megabytes not a concern for people who live in a house, but rather the issue of speed," argues León. 

Which internet plan is the most convenient?

The current competitiveness of companies that provide Internet has to do with the performance of the service provided. “Currently, the use of streaming, online games, social networks and online meetings has grown exponentially. Thus, a 4 or 5 GB plan is no longer enough for a month. What has been done is to update the technology to be able to offer more megabytes and better speed performance. These speed performances began to improve and, practically, are the point of competition for each service company,” explains León. 

That's why, nowadays, there is only one important aspect to take into account when choosing an internet plan, which is to know how much you consume. "To measure this, there are applications that you can install on your phone or computer, such as, for example,  SmartApp, which is an app that measures the consumption of both the 3G, 4G or 5G Internet network of the wireless network, as well as the consumption of your Wi-Fi network and roaming expenses,” adds León. 

“There is also another app called Speedtest by Ookla, which measures the bandwidth you are running on: whether you are at 30, 50, 100, 200 or 250 megabytes per second. With these types of apps, you can measure the speed and with SmartApp how much you consume,” the specialist projects.

Another of the main issues to take into account, according to León, when deciding which Internet plan to contract, is to anticipate the different activities that can occur simultaneously regarding the use of the network in the same home. “It is important to consider consumption peaks in terms of speed, because it may be the case that in the same house someone is watching Netflix, another person is in a virtual meeting and another is playing online. This affects the performance of the Internet and may require a higher speed contract,” he concludes. 

To SURA Insurance, the conscious consumption of technological resources is a strategy that can be applied effectively only if the needs and transformations of each era are taken into account, regardless of the speed with which these needs change.