Digital Divide and Institutional Communication: Telecommunications Infrastructure Barriers to Transparency and Citizen Participation in Rural Areas of Ecuador

Abstract

Government transparency and digital citizen participation in Latin America are conditioned by the available telecommunications infrastructure, particularly in rural areas of the region. This narrative review, with a systematic search, analyzes the telecommunications infrastructure barriers to providing broadband Internet access, which limit institutional communication aimed at transparency and citizen participation in rural areas of Ecuador, with a Latin American scope. A search was conducted in Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), SciELO, Redalyc, and Google Scholar (2020–2025) following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines for transparency in the selection process. From an initial 326 records, 20 studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected for this review. The results show a 36-percentage-point urban-rural gap in meaningful connectivity in the region; in Ecuador, only 20% of the rural population has access to effective broadband internet service, while 61% of national connections are concentrated in the provinces of Guayas and Pichincha. A regulatory paradox is identified: the Organic Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information (LOTAIP) requires digital transparency in territories lacking the infrastructure to support it. An interdisciplinary framework is proposed that articulates technical telecommunications parameters with dimensions of institutional communication as a tool to guide public policies for effective digital inclusion.