23 April 2009African Economic Outlook 2008/2009

A review of the ICT sector 2008/09

David Ogong, Director, Competition and Corporate Affairs

Uganda Communications CommissionJuly 23, 2009

Outline

1) Status of ICT Infrastructure2) Trends in Licensing3) Service growth and penetration4) Trends in retail and whole sale tariffs5) Universal Access Interventions6) Industry innovations

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3

The Telecommunications Sector at a Glance

June -08 Sept -08 Dec -08 Mar - 09

PIP + PSP License Holders 13 21 24 24

PSP Voice and Data Only 7 6 8 8

PSP Capacity Resale Only 6 5 5 5

Fixed Lines 160,768 167,011 168,481 210,655

Mobile Subscriptions 6,140,822 7,460,011 8,554,864 9,801,173

Tele-density 21.3 25.8 29.47 32.61

Number of Payphones 37,595 52,515 56,918 65,669

National Fiber Optic ICT Infrastructure

• Roll out of Phase II of the National Fiber backbone is underway.

• The 1542 km fiber shall link towns of Luweero, Kyenjojo, Bushenyi, Lira and Kumi to the Kampala metro

• Phase III and IV shall link northern Uganda, Western to Phase I and II

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Private Fiber Optic Infrastructure -UETCL

• Optic Fiber network over power lines run by UETCL

• UETCL has obtained a Public Infrastructure Provider and offers transmission links to service providers

5

Wireless Infrastructure and Coverage

• GSM coverage is close to 100% of the total population

• GSM Geographic coverage is at 65%• 2361 BTS installed country wide• 5 GSM cellular operators • National Switch capacity of 12.8 million lines

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Licensing Framework

Telecoms market

Service Infrastructure

Private Infrastructure

License

Combined

Public Service Provider

National Telecoms Operator

General Licences

Public voice and data

Capacity resale

Public Infrastructure

license

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Key principles of the Licensing Framework

The current licensing framework is premised on the following principles;

• Technology neutrality with • Convergence of services• Separation between Infrastructure and Service provision

• Infrastructure is interpreted as “plant, equipment and systems associated with transmission, reception and switching of telecommunications (electronic) signals.”

• A telecommunications service is taken to be the relaying of messages of any form (voice or data) over communication infrastructure between a sender and a receiver”

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Growth in Telephone Connections

• 1o million telephone connections by March 2009 from less than 2 million lines in 2005

• Telephone penetration of 32 lines for every 100 inhabitants.

• Rapid growth in mobile connections is the result of falling connection charges, abolition of monthly rental charges as well as increasing coverage.

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Public Payphones

• Deliberate strategic intervention by the UCC to bolster the roll out of public pay phones. It included the establishment of pay phones through the Universal Access Fund as well as incorporating payphone obligations in NTO licenses.

• Initial policy target was for a payphone for every 1,200 inhabitants.

• To date there are 65,669 payphones countrywide translating into is a payphone for every 500 inhabitants

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Broad band Services• Limited growth in

demand for internet services.

• Only 2.5 million internet users

• The slow uptake is the result of;

- high connection and bandwidth charges resulting from sole dependence on satellite bandwidth, - Limited infrastructure outside the Kampala metro- Limited local content

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Broadband services - Contd

• However there has been significant growth in mobile narrow band internet access.

• This has been facilitated by the entry of traditional voice carriers in this segment offering CDMA, GPRS and 3G data services

• To date there are an estimated 300,000 mobile internet connections

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International Bandwidth, mbps

0

100

200

300

400

mbp

s

Uplink 10.608 26.065 56.316 86.923 138.57

Dow nlink 24.068 60.525 188.7 257.5 369.42

2003 2005 2006 2007 2008

Service Tariffs

• Retail tariffs are largely driven by competitive market forces.

• UCC intervenes in the regulation of wholesale services like wholesale leased lines and termination.

• Effective September 2009, a new interconnection framework shall come in place .

• This shall prescribe interconnection principles and procedures as well as interconnection rates.

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RCDF Universal Service Interventions

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RCDF Projects implemented Number of Commissione

dProjects

Number of Projects under development

Internet Points of Presence 71 5

Internet Cafés 57 22

ICT Training centres 82 20

District Web Portals 78 0

Public Pay Phones 2220 379

Research projects 4 1

Postal support projects 15 20

Multi Purpose Community Tele-centres (MCTs)

8 6

School ICT laboratories 104 1

Health care ICT facilities 0 43

Call centres 0 1

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Thank You