Overview of ICT Infrastructure in Uganda

It is the government policy to develop ICT infrastructure that enable connectivity in schools, health centres, agricultural extension units and administrative and commercial centres throughout the country. As part of this responsibility, the government is currently conducting an e-government and national backbone infrastructure study in partnership with the government of China. This will lead to the laying of a fibre optic backbone that will extend high-speed connectivity across the country. It is expected that the national backbone will enable the setup of an integrated e-government system and extend the current communications network to rural areas.

ICT Penetration

Uganda's Universal Access indicators are clearly indicated in the nation-wide coverage, non-discriminatory access and nation-wide availability of telecommunications services. Therefore the communications infrastructure network put in place by the major communications service providers (MTN, Uganda Telecom, Celtel/Zain, WARID Telecom and others) today covers almost all districts in the country. And to ensure good quality service delivery, more than 80% of all Public Switching Telephone Network (PSTN) switching systems in the country are digital.

There are optical fibre links connecting Kampala City to towns like Entebbe and Jinja, which are the major centres of economic activities, with further expansions currently to link to Masaka and Mabarara to Uganda-Rwanda boarder in the West and Busia (Uganda-Kenya boarder( in the East as well as the other districts of the country are taking place. There are fibre optic rings within Kampala, thus, Metropolitan Wide Area Networks can be configured.

Uganda's international gateways are today mainly satellite based but connection to the world optic fibre network at the Indian Ocean town of Mombasa/ Dar es Salaam or Red Sea Port Sudan are in offing. There is an extensive use of microwave in the backbone infrastructure and Vsat Services. These national and regional transmission links are mostly digital.

After the liberalization of the telecommunication trade in1998, Uganda's tele-density has grown from beyond the minimal sub-Saharan level of 2.8 to a combined fixed and mobile level of 8 in June 2006 to 13.3 in June 2007. This represents an annual growth rate of 68% or a net addition of 1.5 million customers within a period of one year (see table 1). The number of Personal computers per 1000 has risen to 2.5.

Table 1: Number of Telephony Customers and Tele-density

Year Fixed Mobile Teledensity
2002/03 60,995 621,082 2.8
2003/04 71,272 987,456 4.3
2004/05 87,513 1,315,300 5.5
2005/06 108,140 2,008,818 7.8
2006/07 154,383 3,575263 13.3

The number of Internet subscribers increased from 6,500 in 2002 to 13,000 by September 2006. The number of people accessing Internet at least once in a month was estimated to be more than 2,000,000. This was attributed to the increase in Internet access points in the country. In addition, Internet capacity increased; total bandwidth was estimated at 126 Mbps (31.7 up link and 94.3 Mbps down link).

However, one of the most remarkable growths has been in Private FM Radio Stations and TV Stations. The number of FM Radio Stations grew from 3 in 1996 to a staggering 156 in 2007 while the TV Stations grew from 4 to 32 in the same period.

National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure (NBI)

The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is spearheading the development of the National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) and the Electronic Government Infrastructure (EGI). This US$ 100 million project is meant to complement the private sector initiatives to relieve the acute shortage of bandwidth and takes the form of public-private partnership with the ultimate benefits being to the consumer. It is planned that implementation will be in three phases which are similar but only differentiated by magnitude of scope in terms of geographical coverage. When completed the NBI will link all districts in Uganda by 2010.

The first phase will establish the NBI in three towns of Kampala, Jinja and Entebbe and the E-government that shall link ministries. The NBI is intended to ensure that high bandwidth data connection is available in all major towns of Uganda at reasonable rates. The EGI is designed to reduce the cost of doing business in government, improving communication between government agencies and reducing the need for officials to commute for meetings and thus increasing efficiency.

Technology

Ugandan regulation policy advocates for a technology neutral approach and currently, there are many networking elements in play in Uganda. Among them are:

- Ethernet LANs connection to the fibre optic ring

- Leased data lines

- ADS/HDSL/ISDN

- GSM/CDMA2000

- Fixed Wireless data services

- Wi-Fi

- Frame Relay/ATM

- Dial-Up data

- POTS telephone service/ Voice over IP (VoIP)

All these technologies have associated benefits and drawbacks, which are being addressed not only for the general national communication requirements but to attract foreign investment and launch Uganda into the restrictive global markets including Business Process Outsourcing.