Expat Community > Ecuador

casadecuenca
Joined 2013
Posts: 1365

TV & Internet service in Cuenca

11 years ago

Television and Internet choices in Cuenca Ecuador are Satellite with DirectTV or more recently Claro and ETAPA. Cable is available with GrupoTVCable, Univision, Puntonet and CNT have different. All except DirectTV also offer high speed internet. ETAPA has a contract with a Chilean satellite provider, but their satellite is low on the horizon not available everywhere.

Univision which offers TV service and Puntonet, which offers high speed internet, utilize antennas for service and you must be in a line of sight for this service. Univision’s antenna is on top of the mountain in TURI which should cover most of Cuenca.

Some DirectTV authorized distributors only offer two very expensive packages: $85 and $95, but if you go to their website, you can see all the packages that are available, starting at about $35

CNT is the new kid on the block and I have no experience, but their technology and prices are impressive. They offer both TV and high speed internet with a combined package between $40 and $55. Their high speed internet relies on existing telephone wiring like ETAPA and cannot usually function very well at speeds above 3,000.

For the first year I lived in Cuenca, I lived in a high rise in Gringo Gulch and the building was pre-wired for cable, so I had GrupoTVCable. Then I moved to a single family house and ETAPA is my only choice. I had ETAPA service at 2500 and ordered 6100 service. When I saw no difference between 2500 and 6100 I went back to the 2500 for about $30 a month. All ETAPA internet users share what amounts to an 8 party line, so the speed of your connection is divided by 8 and at certain times of the day, it slows to a crawl. All ETAPA is required to provide is 10% of the speed advertised.

From my 1.5 years experience, GrupoTVCable has superior service, especially high speed internet, but they do not have cable installed everywhere. Most of the newer high rise buildings are pre-wired for cable, but older single family homes often do not have cable in the neighborhood.

If you are fortunate enough to have a ROKU box, you can get most of the US networks free—I get NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX and others. There is also a service called UStvnow.com which offers 25-30 US channels for about $20 a month and if you have a ROKU box you can stream from your computer to your TV

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