Uganda’s communication sector

Background
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is the regulatory body of the communications sector in Uganda, established by the Uganda Communications Act (Cap 106 Laws of Uganda) to facilitate and enable the development of a modern communications sector and infrastructure in the country.

Since 2006, Uganda has opened up the sector fully to competition, and has a technology-neutral licensing regime. Service providers are free to decide which technology to use in providing services.  They can provide either data or voice services (or both), and operate their own infrastructure.  

Sector status
Uganda’s communication sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Africa. As in the rest of the continent, this is largely due to the rapid expansion of mobile telephony. UCC has had a profound impact on the communications sector in Uganda, with about 12 million mobile phone users out of 32 million people. About 260 FM radio and 55 television stations have been licensed.

Uganda has a successful universal access programme called the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF). RCDF was established in 2003 to support the development of a commercially-viable communications infrastructure in rural Uganda, thereby promoting social, economic and regional equity in the deployment of telephone, Internet and postal services.

The programme ensures provision of both voice telephony and data networks to Ugandans. To-date, over 65 per cent of the country has a presence of at least one network signal while population coverage with availability of communications facilities is estimated at 95 per cent.

Suffice to say, Uganda has registered much development in the sector mainly through private-public partnerships. Through deliberate policy planning and implementation, a lot of investments have been attracted in the sector, which by standards of a developing country is worthwhile. About US$240 million has been invested in the sector.

To-date the investment portfolio is such that the country is well positioned to hold international fora with substantial success. Though Uganda’s tele-density – which stands at 32 per cent to-date - may be small by international standards, but the availability of modern technology at our disposal compensates for the gaps.

The above measures are intended to provide a clear and predictable environment that promotes competition. Evidently, the measures have led to better service delivery in meeting the ever-increasing demands of consumers of communication services in Uganda.