Colombia reached 49.6 million mobile internet connections and 10.78 million fixed connections: what the figures say about how your customers communicate

Key figures for the second quarter of 2026

Colombia's Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) released in October the ICT Sector Quarterly Bulletin for April-June 2026, available on the Colombia TIC portal. These are the most relevant data points:

• Mobile internet: 49.6 million connections, equivalent to 92 per 100 inhabitants. Of these, 36 million are 4G and 10.7 million are 5G.
• 5G: grew 8% from the previous quarter, when there were 10 million connections, and by the end of June it reached 15.06% of the country's municipalities.
• Fixed internet: 10.78 million connections, up 3.10% from the first quarter, about 20 per 100 inhabitants. Fiber optics is now the main technology, with 6.6 million connections.
• Fixed speed: 259.4 Mbps average national download speed; 372.6 Mbps on corporate connections and 250.9 Mbps in homes.
• Telephony: 87 million mobile lines (62.9 million prepaid and 24.1 million postpaid) versus 5.33 million fixed lines.

According to Mobile Time Latinoamérica, mobile internet connections grew by only about 36,000 from the previous quarter, while TeleSemana estimates growth of close to 800,000 in a year. In other words, the mobile market is near its ceiling in number of connections and the change now is in quality: less 2G and 3G, more 5G.

Mobile versus fixed: a gap that isn't closing

The comparison speaks for itself: for every fixed internet connection there are more than four mobile connections, and for every fixed phone line there are more than sixteen mobile lines. Fixed internet is growing, driven by fiber, but remains concentrated in cities: Bogotá has 32 fixed connections per 100 inhabitants, the highest figure in the country, while the national average is around 20. TeleSemana sums up the picture as a double gap, between fixed and mobile and between urban and rural areas.

Another figure worth looking at is consumption. Of the 49.6 million mobile connections, about 23 million are subscription-based (postpaid), with average traffic of 19.9 GB per month, and about 26.6 million are prepaid, with around 8.2 GB per month, according to TeleSemana's breakdown. For millions of users, mobile data is still a resource to be managed carefully.

Fixed-line telephony keeps falling, but voice isn't disappearing

Fixed lines dropped to 5.33 million, about 570,000 fewer than a year earlier according to TeleSemana, and in the first quarter MinTIC had already reported a drop of about 760,000 lines over twelve months. Corporate fixed lines total around 624,000. The trend is clear: fewer and fewer people have a landline at home and more people handle everything from their mobile phone.

That doesn't mean calls are dead. According to Mobile Time, about 13.7 billion minutes of mobile calls were carried in the quarter. Voice is still the channel customers turn to when they have an urgent problem, a question that can't be solved by chat or simply prefer to talk to someone. What changes is where they call from: almost always, a mobile phone.

What it means for companies in Colombia and Latin America

MinTIC's figures are not just sector statistics; they describe the customer you serve every day. Some practical consequences:

• Your contact number should be designed for mobile. If your customers live on their phones, a +57 3xx mobile number is easy to recognize, save and also use on WhatsApp. A number customers recognize builds more trust than an unknown one.
• Handle several calls at once. If almost everyone calls from a mobile phone and at the same times, a single busy line means lost customers. A cloud phone system lets you distribute calls among agents, sites or remote workers.
• Don't rely only on your customer's data. With millions of prepaid users watching their data, it pays to combine channels: calls, SMS and WhatsApp, so customers can choose the one that suits them best.
• 5G is growing, but it's not everywhere yet. With coverage in 15% of municipalities, your customer service processes must also work well over 4G.
• Review your fixed numbers. If your company still receives most of its calls on traditional fixed lines, it's worth considering moving them to the cloud or complementing them with mobile numbers.

At 19 80 TIC Cloud, as a mobile virtual network operator dedicated to businesses, we offer +57 3xx virtual mobile numbers that receive hundreds of simultaneous calls and connect to your cloud PBX or call center.