
Telecommunication in Jamaica
Compared to the European Union, Jamaica is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +1876, there were a total of 3.31 million connections in 2020. Among them were 2.87 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.97 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 3,906 webhosts, Jamaica is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 475 million of these, or about 12 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Jamaica
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 37.34 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Jamaica ranked 89th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 11.51 Mbit/second was significantly lower (100th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 5th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Jamaica comes 63rd with a download speed of 31.03 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 8 Mbit was only enough for 105th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2022 from 181 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in Jamaica from 1990 - 2019
Broadband internet in Jamaica 2001 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | Jamaica Total | Jamaica percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 385,603.00 | 13.02 % | 163.72 m | 36.59 % |
Landlines | 436,249.00 | 14.73 % | 160.15 m | 35.79 % |
Mobile cellulars | 2.87 m | 97.03 % | 540.56 m | 120.80 % |