There are a number of systems of communication in Uganda, including a system of telephony, radio and television broadcasts, internet, mail, and several newspapers. The use of phones and the internet in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

has rapidly increased in the last few years.

History

1900 to 1970

The postal service of for the protectorates of British East Africa and Uganda was called

East Africa and Uganda Protectorates East Africa and Uganda Protectorates was the name used by the combined mail, postal service of the Protectorate#British protectorates, British protectorates, British East Africa and Uganda Protectorate, Uganda, between 1 April 1903 and 22 July 1920. ...

, and operated from April 1, 1903, to July 22, 1920. From 1948 to 1977, postal service in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda was provided by the East African Posts and Telecommunications Corporation. With the

decolonization of Africa The decolonisation of Africa was a process that took place in the mid-to-late 1950s to 1975 during the Cold War, with radical government changes on the continent as colonial governments made the transition to independent states. The process w ...

, Uganda took over control of its postal system, although until 1961 stamps from the colonial postal system were being issued alongside Uganda's stamps.

1990s to present

The Uganda Posts and Telecommunications Corporation had a monopoly over Uganda's communications sector until the Uganda Communications Act was enacted in 1997. The act created the

Uganda Communications Commission The Uganda Communications Commission ''(UCC)'' is the government regulatory body of the communications sector in Uganda. Although owned by the Ugandan government, it acts independently. Its mandated responsibilities include licensing, regulatio ...

, the current regulator of communications in Uganda.Kyeyune, H. (21 May 2004). ''CASE STUDY: UGANDA'' (Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

Radiocommunications Unit New Radiocommunication Technologies for Information and Communication Technologies in Developing African Countries).

Telephone

, the telephone communications system was described by the CIA factbook as "developed through private partnerships", with "over of fiber optics", and 4G network available in most major cities and national parks, and 3G service available in second-tier urban centers. , Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL), Celtel and MTN Uganda Limited were the three telecommunications operators licensed by the Uganda Communications Commission. In 2018, there were 368,243 main telephone lines in use in

, making Uganda one-hundred and eighth in terms of countries having the most main telephone lines. In 2016, there were 22.838 million mobile telephones in use, making Uganda fifty fourth in terms of countries having the most mobile telephones in use. This was an increase from 2006 when there were 108,600 main telephone lines in use in Uganda, and from 2007 when there were 4.195 million mobile telephones in use. By June 2018, the total number of mobile telephone users in Uganda, was 23.6 million, or 57.6% of the 41 million population, according to the

. , telephone traffic within is carried by wire. Microwave ''radi relay'', and radiotelephone communication stations are used in domestic telecommunications as well, and fixed and mobile cellular systems are used for short range traffic. , international telephone communication is catered for by an Intelsat and an Inmarsat

satellite earth station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fro ...

, along with

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

links to

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

and

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

. The international calling code is 256.

Internet

The

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

for Uganda is "

.ug .ug is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map ...

". In 2018 Uganda had 18.149 million Internet users, or 45.9% of the population (52nd in the world). This is up from 2.5 million users in 2008 (64th in the world). In 2012, Uganda had 36,332 fixed broadband subscriptions (119th in the world) or 0.1% of the population (165th in the world)"Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. and 2.5 million wireless broadband subscriptions (58th in the world) or 7.6% of the population (99th in the world)."Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. The first high speed commercial internet service in Uganda (and Africa) was constructed by international satellite internet backbone provider NSN Network Services of Avon, CO and its Ugandan ISP client, Infomail Uganda Ltd. This service was switched online on the morning of August 5, 1995. Infomail was linked by satellite from Kampala to NSN's United States east-coast satellite gateway at the USEI teleport in New Jersey and from there linked by a leased terrestrial connection to NSN's satellite gateway and peering routers which were co-located at the Giga-ring at MAE-WEST, at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in California. The actual satellite linking the two continents was leased by NSN from the Russian Space Communications Corporation (RSCC), a C-Band satellite in geostationary orbit over the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Infomail Uganda began operations with 16 customer dial up lines served by 16 USR 19,200 baud rack mounted modems. A Sun Sparc “Pizzabox” Server on-site in Kampala managed all local internet services and user accounting. The original satellite link in Kampala used a 5-meter Andrew antenna. The initial link speed was 64kbit/s, almost immediately upgraded to 1.5Mbit/s in January 2006 when the RF amplifiers in Kampala were upgraded from 5 Watts to 20 Watts. Infomail Uganda Ltd was founded and managed by Dr. Jean Paul Minet in partnership with Kampala radio broadcaster Patrick Quarcoo (Capital FM) and William Pike, editor/publisher of The Nation newspaper. The backbone satellite system was designed and assembled / installed in Kampala by NSN's VP of Engineering Bill Sepmeier, NSN co-founder and engineer John Morris, and local Kampala engineer Terah Kagwah. NSN was sold in 1997 to JACOR/Clear Channel Communications and its remaining network operations in Denver were acquired by LinkUp Communications in 2021. By the end of 2006, Uganda had 18

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

s. Mobile network operators provide internet services to Ugandans alongside fixed-line internet providers. MTN was the first mobile operator to offer Internet services in Uganda via GPRS, but Orange (France Telecom) was the first to popularize mobile Internet by offering 3G services after joining the market in 2009. Orange eventually divested from many anglophone markets in Africa, and their Uganda operating company was purchased by Africell Uganda in 2014. MTN later deployed 3G mobile internet services following decreasing revenues in traditional voice and SMS services. Warid, Zain, UTL, and others later followed suit. Vodafone later entered the market as Uganda's first MVNO. Fixed-line internet providers have also increased in Uganda. These mainly offer premium dedicated internet services to business customers. Some of the notable ISPs for business include RokeTelecom, Onesolution, Smile Communication, Datanet, Liquid Telecom, Africa Online among others. These offer high speed internet services for enterprise services with speeds ranging from 0.5Mbit/s to 5Mbit/s offering 4G LTE, Wimax, Fibre connectivity solutions. In December 2015, Google launched its first wi-fi network in Kampala.

Internet censorship and surveillance

In September 2009 the

OpenNet Initiative The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...

found little or no evidence of Internet filtering in all four areas (political, social, conflict/security, and Internet tools) for which it tests. Though Uganda has made great technological strides in recent years, the country still faces a number of challenges in obtaining affordable, reliable Internet bandwidth. This, rather than a formal government-sponsored filtering regime, is the major obstacle to Internet access. Just prior to the presidential elections in February 2006, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) blocked the anti-government Web site RadioKatwe in the only internationally reported case of Internet filtering in Uganda to that date. During the 2016 parliamentary elections, the government ordered the blocking of

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

for 72 hours (18-21 February). In July 2018, Uganda instituted a tax on "over the top" messaging and voice services, which includes social networks. Users must may a fee of USh (approx

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

0.06) daily in order to use these services. The stated purpose of the law is to provide additional government revenue, and to control "gossip" being spread over these platforms.

VPN service A virtual private network (VPN) service provides a proxy server to help users bypass Internet censorship such as geoblocking and users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks. A wide va ...

s have also been blocked, after they were used by citizens to circumvent the tax. Amnesty International condemned the tax as being "a clear attempt to undermine the right to freedom of expression". Internet usage fell significantly after the tax was introduced.

Postal Service

, Uganda Post Limited was the only postal service licensed by the

in Uganda. , Uganda Post Limited had changed its name to

Posta Uganda Posta Uganda ( Luganda for Uganda Post) originally named Uganda Post Limited, is the company solely responsible for postal service in Uganda.

Radio and television

The

Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is the public broadcaster network of Uganda. It was founded as a result of the "Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Act, 2004", which merged the operations of Uganda Television (UTV) and Radio Uganda. It started ...

is the public broadcasting station. The 2004 Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Act stated that the UBC should be funded by the levying of a

television licence A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence ...

fee. Collection of a licence fee set at (around

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

8.40 or

10.80) started in 2005. However, collection was subsequently halted by President

Yoweri Museveni Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician and retired senior military officer who has been the 9th and current President of Uganda since 26 January 1986. Museveni spearheaded rebellions with aid of then ...

. There has since been pressure to reinstate the licence fee to maintain UBC's independence.

Newspapers

Daily newspapers in Uganda include '' The New Vision'', ''Sunday Vision'', '' The Daily Monitor'', ''The Sunday Monitor'', '' The Red Pepper'', ''The Sunday Pepper'', '' The Uganda Observer'', and '' The East African Business Week'' in the Northern Region of Uganda. ''The East African Procurement News'' is a weekly business newspaper.

Blogs in Uganda

Blogs are increasingly being used as a medium of communication in Uganda. Affordable data rates, increasing internet penetration and free blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger are making internet users turn to blogging platforms to creatively express themselves, comment on current affairs, inform the public among other reasons.

References

External links

Uganda Communications Commission: A Government Agency

Uganda Communications Commission - June 2008 Index of Radio and TV stations - pdf

GSM World page on Uganda

PanAfriL10n page on Uganda
{{Uganda topics