What you need to know:
- UCC maintains that it is not opposed to the business model, which could help expand internet access across Uganda, provided operators complied with licensing requirements.
Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has warned the public against buying internet services from unlicensed distributors, saying the practice could expose users to security risks, including unauthorised access to their banking and mobile money transactions.
Ibrahim Bbosa, UCC’s head of corporate communications, told Monitor in an interview on Wednesday evening that more than 4,000 unlicensed internet distributors had turned up at a consultative meeting convened by the regulator on Tuesday to discuss how to formalise their businesses.
Bbosa said the turnout had exceeded expectations, with distributors seeking guidance on how to register their operations. He warned that consumers could struggle to seek redress if problems arose because the unregistered operators were difficult to trace.
“Many of these people are doing it in places like schools, universities, the malls downtown there where they rig an entire mall. They create an area that somebody can connect and they are the so-called building platform owners,” he said.
Bbosa said the commission was developing an online portal, expected to become operational on Friday, October 23, through which the distributors would submit their registration details. He said both the more than 4,000 operators who had turned up at the meeting and others yet to come forward would be required to register.
The distributors typically buy internet data packages from licensed internet service providers, then resell the connectivity to customers at lower prices, Bbosa said. They advertise their services on WhatsApp and provide telephone contacts through which customers can purchase access using physical or digital vouchers.
The operators use routers to establish networks serving particular areas, including schools, universities and shopping malls. Bbosa said all the more than 4,000 distributors identified so far were connected to mobile money services.
He said the operators were not necessarily breaking the law by buying internet packages for personal or office use, but breached regulatory requirements when they resold the connectivity commercially without the necessary licences.
“If they shared it with other people free of charge, there would be no problem but when they start selling it, they create a principal and customer relationship which calls for regulatory requirements like licensing, because they are now selling and earning from it,” he said.
Bbosa said the commission was not opposed to the business model, which could help expand internet access across Uganda, provided operators complied with licensing requirements.
He said unlicensed distributors were attracting customers away from telecommunications companies that are registered, pay taxes and operate under the country’s regulatory framework, creating concerns about fair competition.
The commission could establish a separate regulatory framework for the distributors to allow them to operate legally while expanding internet access, he added.