Colombia’s mobile data traffic grew 11% in the third quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier, while the country’s mobile market surpassed US$900 million in quarterly revenue, with mobile internet now generating close to 90% of that total, according to Data Flash 2026-001 published by the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (CRC, Colombia’s telecommunications regulator) on May 11, 2026. The figures confirm a structural transition that has been building for several years: while data consumption continues to surge, uneven access remains a defining feature of Colombia’s connectivity landscape.
That gap matters because the 11% figure describes an average across a country where Bogotá’s 5G network already covers 69.2% of the city’s urban surface area, while large parts of the Pacific and Amazon regions still lack reliable 4G coverage, making the aggregate a poor substitute for a territorial picture.
A market rewriting its own rules
The most direct signal of what Colombians actually do with their phones comes from the voice call data, which fell 9.1% in Q3 2025 compared with the same quarter in 2024, a decline that reflects a shift away from billed minutes toward data-based communication through WhatsApp calls, video platforms, and streaming, rather than a reduction in overall mobile use.
Colombia’s trajectory follows the regional pattern documented by GSMA: Latin America counted 418 million mobile internet users in 2023, representing approximately 65% of the regional population, and the region’s total mobile accesses surpassed 677 million by 2025 according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, with data consumption per user rising continuously as device capabilities and network speeds improve.
Worth noting is that Colombia’s 5G rollout sits at the sharper edge of this regional trend, with 5G connections growing 150% in a single year to surpass six million accesses by late 2025, according to CRC figures; Open Signal’s April 2026 Colombia Mobile Network Experience Report records a 15.6% increase in 5G adoption between Q2 and Q3 2025 alone, placing Colombia among the fastest-converting markets in Latin America even as 4G continues to carry the majority of data volume.
Where the growth does not reach
Aggregate growth numbers, however, say nothing about geography, and Colombia’s connectivity map tells a very different story once urban averages give way to departmental data. The OECD’s Digital Connectivity Review of Colombia, published in March 2026, identifies coverage gaps in rural and semi-urban areas as the country’s main unresolved connectivity challenge, noting that 5G investment has concentrated in the largest urban centers and that the delayed build-out in secondary cities and rural municipalities risks deepening the existing digital divide rather than closing it.
Colombia reached more than 102 million mobile lines in Q2 2025, according to CRC data, a number that appears to suggest near-universal access until the rural coverage maps reveal that a significant share of those lines operates on 2G or 3G infrastructure in regions where geography and low population density make 4G and 5G networks commercially difficult to justify without regulatory intervention or public subsidy.
The MinTIC (Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, Colombia’s digital ministry) reported that fixed internet access grew 5.89% between Q3 2025 and the immediately prior quarter, but fixed broadband penetration in rural Colombia remains well below the national average, meaning mobile connectivity carries an outsized social weight in those areas where a data connection on a smartphone is the only option available.
What the next government must decide
GSMA addressed its 2026 digital agenda proposal directly to Colombia’s presidential candidates, calling for spectrum policy reform (spectrum refers to the radio frequencies that wireless networks use to transmit data), investment incentives for rural infrastructure, and regulatory adjustments to accelerate 5G deployment outside the six largest cities, framing these as decisions that will determine whether Colombia’s digital growth translates into broad economic gains or stays concentrated in urban areas that were already better served. The next administration will be judged on whether it treats connectivity like roads and energy, since the economic literature on digital inclusion consistently links mobile broadband access to productivity gains, financial inclusion, and access to public services in communities that have no viable alternative.
Colombia’s mobile market produces compelling aggregate numbers, but the rural gap documented by the OECD and flagged by GSMA before the election represents the more consequential metric, because it measures not how fast the connected population moves but how large the unconnected one remains.