Puerto Rico Communications - 2024

Telephones - fixed lines

total subscriptions: 739,111 (2022 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 22 (2021 est.)

Telephones - mobile cellular

total subscriptions: 3,661,176 (2021 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 112 (2021 est.)

Telecommunication systems

general assessment: Puerto Rico has a small telecom market which in recent years has been deeply affected by a combination of economic mismanagement and natural disasters, including two hurricanes which landed in late 2017 and an earthquake which struck in January 2020; these disasters caused considerable destruction of telecom infrastructure, which in turn led to a marked decline in the number of subscribers for all services; compounding these difficulties have been a long-term economic downturn which encouraged many people not to resume telecom services after these were restored; after some delay, the FCC in late 2019 issued an order relating to the release of funds to help rebuild telecom infrastructure; although Puerto Rico is a US territory it lags well behind the mainland US states in terms of fixed-line and broadband services; this is partly due to high unemployment rates (and consequently low disposable income) and poor telecoms investment in a market; the mobile market has been impacted by several mergers and acquisitions over the last few years; the activities of large multinational telcos continue to impact the Puerto Rican market; operators have secured spectrum in the 600MHz and 3.5GHz bands, thus enabling them to expand the reach of LTE services and launch services based on 5G;  the growing number of submarine cables landing in Puerto Rico is helping to drive down the cost of telecom services, creating a demand for streaming content from abroad; the uptake of cloud-based applications for both business and individuals is also creating a heightened demand for affordable services (2021)

domestic: fixed-line is 22 per 100 and mobile-cellular is 112 per 100 persons (2021)

international: country code - 1-787, 939; landing points for the GTMO-PR, AMX-1, BRUSA, GCN, PCCS, SAm-1, Southern Caribbean Fiber, Americas-II, Antillas, ARCOS, SMPR-1, and Taino-Carib submarine cables providing connectivity to the mainland US, Caribbean, Central and South America; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (2019)

Broadcast media

more than 30 TV stations operating; cable TV subscription services are available; roughly 125 radio stations

Internet country code

.pr

Internet users

total: 2,564,100 (2021 est.)

percent of population: 77.7% (2021 est.)

Broadband - fixed subscriptions

total: 671,284 (2020 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 24 (2020 est.)