Inside Rwanda’s Internet Revolution: How the Nation Is Connecting Remote Villages and Launching Satellites
Rwanda’s first internet access occurred around 1996, and by 2000 there were about 5,000 users (less than 0.1% of the population). In 2004 Rwanda privatized Rwandatel and sold it to Terracom, opening the ISP market to competition. Between 2008 and 2010, Rwanda laid over 3,000 km of national fiber backbone across all 30 districts, linking to SEACOM, EASSy and TEAMS in 2009, driving international bandwidth costs from about $3,000 per Mbps in 2006 to roughly $25 per Mbps. In 2013, Korea Telecom Rwanda Networks (KTRN) built a nationwide 4G network on a wholesale-only basis, achieving over 95% population coverage by
