06 March 2023

Rwanda has moved to cut short Korea Telecom Rwanda Networks’ (KTRN) 25-year exclusive rights over the country’s 4G spectrum, to enable other operators to roll out their own 4G services and provide competition.

The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) notified KTRN of its decision to modify its license for network service provision in October, as the government wants to remove regulatory hurdles preventing other operators from launching services.

KTRN is the dominant organisation in Rwanda when it was awarded all spectrum for LTE and the role as a single network operator to resell capacity to rivals, in 2013.

RURA detailed the move as part of Rwanda’s National Broadband Policy and Strategy which was unveiled last year with three key targets: increase market competition to accelerate adoption of broadband mobile services; making spectrum and technologies available to facilitate operator rollouts; and rallying more competition in the fibre backhaul market.