For decades, the global conversation surrounding the digital divide has focused primarily on a binary metric: who is connected to the Internet and who is left behind. However, a comprehensive new study reveals that high internet penetration rates can easily mask profound internal inequalities. Looking beyond mere aggregate statistics, researchers examining the Dominican Republic as a case study have found that territorial disparities in both access and network performance continue to create a fragmented digital landscape, even as overall connectivity improves.
The findings, presented by telecommunications researcher and lecturer Dr. Wilson Ramírez, highlight that territories can differ vastly not only in the sheer availability of fixed-internet access, but also in the actual performance of the connections delivered to end users. While fixed-internet penetration has steadily increased nationwide and territorial inequality has gradually declined over the years, substantial gaps remain. Furthermore, provinces boasting higher penetration rates also tend to experience superior network performance, proving that high aggregate numbers can coexist with stark regional divides.
The Digital Divide is More Than Being Connected
Historically, policymakers and international organizations have measured digital inclusion almost exclusively by tracking subscription ratios against total population sizes. Yet, this narrow perspective fails to capture the full scope of modern connectivity. According to framework papers from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, evaluating the true state of digital inclusion requires examining equality of access and effective connectivity.
When relying solely on economy-level averages, critical regional disparities remain hidden. For instance, World Bank Development Indicators show that fixed-broadband penetration in the Dominican Republic reached approximately 11.73 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2024. While this aggregate ratio—calculated as the total number of fixed-broadband subscriptions divided by the total population—places the nation ahead of neighboring Caribbean economies like Cuba, which hovers at around 3.0 subscriptions per 100 residents, and Haiti, at roughly 0.3, it still lags behind European averages, which ECLAC data estimate at roughly 19.7 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.
However, relying entirely on this population-weighted aggregate metric paints an incomplete picture. When evaluated from a purely territorial perspective by calculating an unweighted mean across the nation’s 32 provinces using data from the National Statistics Office, the average fixed-internet penetration drops to just 8.34 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants for 2024.
This noticeable gap of 3.39 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants between the aggregate and territorial means offers an early indicator that internet density is unevenly distributed across the country’s diverse geographic regions, obscured by densely populated urban centers that skew the national average.
A Territorial View of Internet Connectivity
A broader approach to connectivity requires examining not only who has a subscription, but also how regional density and network performance vary across different territories. A deeper look into provincial penetration levels reveals a dramatic inequality gap. The max-to-min ratio between the provinces boasting the highest and lowest internet density stands at an astounding 16.37.
At the top of the spectrum is the Distrito Nacional—the nation’s capital and primary economic engine—alongside La Altagracia, a province globally renowned for its booming tourism industry. In the Distrito Nacional, fixed-internet penetration reached 26.2% in 2024. By contrast, the remote province of Independencia recorded a penetration rate of just 1.6%. This means fixed-internet access in the capital was roughly 16.4 times higher than that observed in Independencia, offering compelling evidence that territorial inequalities in fixed-broadband access cannot be ignored.
Geographic mapping of these figures illustrates a clear territorial pattern. Internet density is heavily concentrated in major economic and tourist hubs, while a distinct pattern of lower density emerges across the southwestern region of the country.
To move beyond visual observations and establish statistical proof, researchers utilized Getis-Ord Gi* spatial analysis. The resulting hot-spot maps confirm a statistically significant cluster of low internet density along the southwestern corridor, where provincial penetration rates routinely drop below 5%. Conversely, the exceptionally high penetration levels observed in Distrito Nacional and La Altagracia do not form broad regional clusters; rather, they remain highly localized. These high-performing, heavily populated urban pockets significantly inflate the national aggregate mean, effectively masking the severe connectivity deficits experienced in the country’s southwestern territories.
Are Territorial Inequalities Declining?
While static snapshots provide critical insight into where connectivity is concentrated at a given moment, understanding the true nature of the digital divide requires analyzing how these geographic inequalities evolve over time.
Researchers tracked the distribution of fixed-internet density across all 32 provinces using the Gini coefficient, a standard economic tool used to summarize how equally or unequally a resource is distributed. Between 2017 and 2024, the Gini coefficient for fixed-internet density in the Dominican Republic decreased from 0.365 to 0.313, signaling a gradual reduction in overall inequality.
At the same time, analysts utilized the Wolfson index to measure polarization—assessing whether the distribution was becoming concentrated into two distinct clusters of low- and high-connectivity territories. The Wolfson index similarly declined from 0.321 in 2017 to 0.252 in 2024.
Taken together, these two indicators demonstrate that while fixed-internet access remains geographically unequal, both overall inequality and territorial polarization have steadily decreased over the seven-year analysis period. Nevertheless, a slight upward tick observed in the 2024 data indicates that this path toward greater digital equity has not been entirely continuous or uniform.
Beyond subscription counts and geographic distribution, true digital inclusion depends heavily on how the underlying network actually performs. As established in networking literature, increasing access speeds inevitably raises user expectations regarding the quality and reliability of their internet service.
To evaluate effective connectivity, researchers incorporated Ookla fixed-network measurement data, focusing on provincial download speeds, upload speeds, and transmission latency. These distinct metrics capture different properties of network performance and do not necessarily scale uniformly. For example, a connection may offer a relatively high download speed while simultaneously suffering from high latency, which severely degrades the user experience for interactive applications like video conferencing or online gaming.
An analysis of the 2024 performance data reveals substantial disparities across the nation’s provinces. Provincial average download speeds ranged widely from a low of 25.53 Mbps to a high of 84.46 Mbps, with a national mean of 37.09 Mbps and a standard deviation of 10.83 Mbps. Upload speeds similarly varied from 5.83 Mbps to 32.36 Mbps, averaging 16.11 Mbps. Meanwhile, network latency—measured in milliseconds—ranged from a snappy 9.27 ms up to a sluggish 67.28 ms, with an overall mean of 29.47 ms. These figures confirm that territorial inequalities extend far beyond mere subscription availability into the core technical performance of the infrastructure itself.
To explore the relationship between access and quality, researchers calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between provincial internet density and the three performance indicators for 2024. The results show a strong positive correlation between internet density and download speeds, with an r-value of 0.83, as well as upload speeds, with an r-value of 0.82.
This indicates that provinces with higher levels of fixed-internet penetration also tend to benefit from faster connection speeds. Latency exhibits the inverse relationship, yielding a strong negative correlation of r = -0.70. Consequently, provinces with higher subscription densities generally experience lower network delays.
Despite these strong correlations, the relationship is not absolute. High penetration does not automatically guarantee maximum download and upload speeds, nor does it ensure minimal latency. Because each network performance metric captures a fundamentally different characteristic of digital infrastructure, evaluating a region solely by its number of subscriptions provides an incomplete and superficial picture of true territorial connectivity.
Ultimately, the findings underscore a vital lesson for telecommunications researchers and policymakers alike: aggregate penetration figures alone cannot tell the whole story. Access, geographic distribution, and network performance represent three distinct dimensions of the exact same socioeconomic phenomenon. Tracking who is connected reveals the breadth of digital access, while measuring connection performance uncovers the actual quality of that access. Evaluating these dimensions in tandem is essential for understanding not only who manages to get connected, but the genuine quality of the digital connectivity they ultimately receive.
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