Uganda - Broadband and Internet Market, Convergence

Synopsis

Uganda was one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to gain full Internet connectivity. Being landlocked, the country depended entirely on satellites for its international connectivity until 2009 when several international submarine fibre optic cables landed on the African east coast. Uganda is now connected via a national fibre backbone extending to its borders, implemented by Uganda Telecom and MTN Uganda. By 2012, prices for international bandwidth had plummeted to a fraction of their original cost. In parallel, wireless technologies such as WiMAX and 3G mobile services have brought the Internet within reach of a much wider part of the population than the limited fixed-line DSL services ever have. These improvements in infrastructure are revolutionising the market by making broadband access more affordable and enabling converged voice, data and video/entertainment services.

Companies covered in this report:

• UTL Online (Uganda Telecom);
• Infocom (Altech);
• Africa Online;
• Spacenet;
• The Broadband Company (TMP);
• MTN;
• Wateen Telecoms;
• Smile Telecom;
• Foris Telecom;
• Talk Telecom;
• Mo Telecom;
• Goal Technology Solutions (GTS);
• UMEME;
• WBS Television;
• NTV Uganda;
• MultiChoice;
• Jump TV;
• Wananchi.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Internet market
  • 2.1 Overview
    • 2.1.1 Internet statistics
  • 2.2 Public Internet access locations
  • 2.3 Personal computer market
  • 2.4 Dial-up
  • 2.5 International bandwidth
• 3. Uganda’s ISP market
  • 3.1 Overview, licensing
  • 3.2 Selected ISPs
    • 3.2.1 Infocom
    • 3.2.2 UTL Online
    • 3.2.3 Africa Online Uganda
    • 3.2.4 Spacenet
    • 3.2.5 The Broadband Company (TMP)
  • 3.3 Uganda Internet Exchange Point (UiXP)
• 4. E-services
  • 4.1 E-commerce
  • 4.2 E-banking
  • 4.3 E-government
• 5. Broadband market
  • 5.1 Overview
  • 5.2 ADSL
  • 5.3 WiFi
  • 5.4 WiMAX
• 6. Convergence
  • 6.1 VoIP telephony
  • 6.2 Next generation Networks (NGN)
  • 6.3 Broadband over powerlines (BPL)
  • 6.4 Smart grids
  • 6.5 Broadcasting
    • 6.5.1 Overview
    • 6.5.2 Broadband TV (IPTV)
    • 6.5.3 Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT)
• 7. Related reports

• Table 1 – Internet users and penetration rate – 1995 - 2012
• Table 2 – International Internet bandwidth – 1999 - 2010

• Chart 1 – Internet users and penetration rate – 2003 - 2012