Telecommunications companies have invested over 1.5 billion pesos (US $77 million) in Quintana Roo’s fibre optic infrastructure and increased internet coverage.

The director of the state’s Institute for Development and Finance, Bernardo Cueto Riestra, said his department has worked closely with the administration of Governor Carlos Joaquín González on three projects to bring cutting-edge technology to the state.

“The economic development of the state should be robustly interwoven with new trends in technology and telecommunications,” he said at an event on Friday. “These tools don’t just generate better productivity, they also shorten distances and gaps of inequality.”

At the end of 2018, it was announced that companies like Lomas Telecom, Maya Cable, Tele Cable and GigaNet had made large investments and had plans to expand.

Also last year, Atlán Redes invested 260 million pesos in order to guarantee coverage to 95% of Quintana Roo. The company plans to have 206 access points by the end of 2019, bringing its total investment to 400 million pesos.

A third project was a US $60-million investment for the installation of 180 kilometers of broadband fibre optics by Cobalt Holdings, which announced the opening of a new center of operations in Cancún.

Director of the Quintana Roo Institute of Innovation and Technology, Marco Bravo Fabián, said that such investments meet the region’s growing demand for high-speed internet due to trends in coliving and coworking.

He said that Cancún is becoming one of the most well-connected cities in the country, and is therefore attracting more information technology development.

Mexico’s Caribbean coast is popular with remote workers called digital nomads. Bravo stated that there are no concrete numbers as to how many people are working remotely in Quintana Roo, but their importance to the economy can be seen in the modifications hotels are making to optimize their internet speeds.

Source: El Economista (sp)