A Memorandum of Agreement was
signed between the Government of Rwanda and USAID
Leland Initiative which has provided support to RwandaTel, the national
telecom, to set-up a full Internet service in Rwanda by providing link to its
national gateway. Following an announcement by the Government for applications, two
firms were approved to become ISPs. These are C-Tech and RTI-Infotec.
However, RwandaTel
has not come into agreement with the ISPs on the monthly price of Internet access.
RwandaTel proposed a monthly charge of US$ 4,500 per ISP. Based on a population of 50
subscribers, the ISPs proposed to charge the user a monthly fee between US$ 174.00
(proposed by one of the ISPs) and US$ 300.00 (proposed by the other); whereas RwandaTel
suggested a monthly fee of US$ 50.00/user. In relation to the monthly charge per ISP,
Leland Initiative has asked Rwandatel to only charge US$ 2,500 per ISP.
RwandaTel has
currently embarked in the provision of Internet services by connecting itself through MCI
in USA. However, RwandaTel has not yet established its own domain "rw". Instead
it is using the "com" domain.
Internet host sites: 1,133
(2001)
Internet subscribers
(2002):
- Total: 2,700
- Internet subscribers per 10,000
inhabitants: 3.4
Internet Users (2001):
- Total: 20,000
- Users per 10,000 inhabitants: 25.16
Internet use by categories:
- Commercial:
- Academic:
- Research:
- NGO/UN/International:
- Government:
- Others:
Internet bandwidth (Kbps):
1300 (2002)
