Internet costs drop by 73% in 3 years

With effect from 1st November, 2017. @NITAUganda1 will be supplying its internet at $70 per Mbps from the current $190 per Mbps pic.twitter.com/17SGaNWyKF

— GCIC Uganda (@GCICUganda) October 30, 2017

Through its NBI, NITA-U has over 2,400km of fiber laid across Uganda and in a number of towns and plans to extend to more towns. The IT authority plans to have connected 730 MDAs by the end of FY 2017/18 up from 321 MDAs connected presently.

“…this effort has been deliberate and we are happy to have led the industry in reducing the cost of connectivity to government offices by over 84% since 2010, when 1Mbps cost a government office US$1200 compared to the current cost of US$70 for 1Mbps,” James Saaka, the executive director of NITA-U explained in a notice.

NITA’s new move was in response to the government’s recent decision to buy internet services from the struggling Uganda Telecom arguing that it was offering them a better deal at US100 per Mbps compared with NITA’s US$300 per Mbps.

Data service providers have welcomed the reduction in price. Ali Balunywa, the sales and distribution director at Airtel Uganda told The Independent that the reduction would benefit businesses and a very big youth population in Uganda spending most of their time on social media trying out many things.

“….for us the drop in price of internet means the customer get better experience and affordability,” he said.

In terms of policy, he said, there is need for collaboration between the private sector and the government in line with provision of services like electricity and other infrastructure related services in hard to reach areas so as to lower cost of investment in the communication sector.

Balunywa said that the licensing regime has allowed many players to join the market and will see more affordable services coming to the market much faster than it is at the moment.

Michael Niyitegeka, an ICT consultant and internet user told The Independent that the downward movement of price of internet is good at the moment because it would support business growth and ease usage of the service.

He urged government to give incentives to importers of internet using devices so as to deepen penetration and use of internet on the market.

He however, said that as the price goes down, and more service providers join the market, the UCC must enhance its monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the consumer gets value for the service.