At MWC Africa, Paula Ingabire presents the five main pillars of Rwanda’s new broadband policy.

[DIGITAL Business Africa] – The Rwandan Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire, presented to the African ministers in charge of ICT the main pillars of the new National broadband policy and strategy of her country adopted a week ago.

It was yesterday, October 25, 2022, in Kigali, Rwanda, during the Policy Leader’s forum organized by the Council of ICT Ministers in partnership with the GSMA. Meeting was organized jointly with the first edition of the Mobile World Congress Africa.

Paula Ingabire explained that the new Rwandan broadband policy proposes a redefinition of the market structure, moving from a service-based competition to a global deployment of networks and advanced services.

This, she says, goes hand in hand with aligning spectrum licensing and the regulatory framework with investment strategies. This is to attract more operators and investors to the broadband market.

The five pillars of broadband

The Minister said that Rwanda’s new broadband policy continues to focus on five important progressive pillars, namely: secure and optimized broadband infrastructure resources management; Inclusive access to high-quality, trusted, and competitive broadband services; Sustainable and meaningful broadband connectivity driving broadband adoption; Digital skills for all and local digital innovation competences and finally National climate resilience promotion

The six objectives covered by these pillars, the Minister reminds us, are:

1. To enable access to affordable and quality broadband services: this will include a continued focus on smart device penetration, opening diversified international traffic routes, and implementing number portability services.
2. To enhance competition on infrastructure, which will involve objectives in the Introduction of terrestrial wireless technology neutrality, reviewing spectrum resources usage, strengthening measures to facilitate and enforce infrastructure sharing, and strengthening measures to accelerate broadband coverage.
3. To upscale the capacity and reach of broadband networks, “with our policy objectives being to integrate broadband targets in national infrastructure investment planning, to promote bulk broadband capacity purchases to drive cost reduction, to promote alternative broadband infrastructure technologies, and to promote local Internet Exchange Points and local hosting facilities”.
4. To promote broadband as a catalyst for innovation. Rwanda will work towards objectives to put in place incentives to promote innovative technology solutions and to develop a broadband industry development index.
5. To develop skills and increase value perception for broadband services. Rwanda will undertake continuous capacity development and training for experts in the various areas of the broadband domain, facilitate our citizens to undertake training and acquire relevant digital skills, and will continue to initiate and promote programs aimed at building digital trust among the citizens.
6. And finally, Rwanda will adopt agile methods of regulation that will help us to develop data-driven regulatory frameworks and regular market assessment in response to the rapid broadband industrial changes.

This new broadband policy will, according to the government, be a key enabler of Rwanda’s aspirations to achieve high-income country status and upper-middle-income country status by 2035.

” We are certain that improving broadband services in Rwanda will be a critical enabler of the social-economic development we seek, and that this progressive policy will directly contribute to the achievement of our national strategic goals,” said Paula Ingabire.

The new National Broadband Policy of Rwanda

Par B-O.D, à Kigali