Telecommunication in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Development of telephone and internet connections

With an average download speed of 9.7 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, the Democratic Republic of the Congo ranks 154th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 4.0 Mbit/second was significantly lower (168th place).
In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, the Congo (Dem. Republic) comes 120th with a download speed of 14.85 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 9 Mbit was enough for 99th place.

The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2023 from 180 countries.

This is how much a mobile phone contract costs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Every year, the International Telecommunication Union calculates for many countries what a mobile phone contract costs to use. A monthly budget averaging US$ 15.00 was calculated the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2021. Compared to the previous year, this amount decreased by 16 cents.

The ITU refers to the costs for monthly use and includes 140 telephony minutes, 70 text messages and a data transfer of 2 GBytes. The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 2 GBytes do not sound much. However, this is already quite a high consumption in a worldwide comparison. If one does not take a fixed amount in US dollars, but converts it to the economic output per inhabitant, a user in the Democratic Republic of the Congo spends 32.73% of his gross national income on mobile telephony. Worldwide, this rate is around 6.6 percent.

In the USA, the monthly cost was around $41.80.

The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.

Access to the internet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1990 - 2021

Broadband internet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2010 - 2021

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is lagging behind in the expansion of broadband internet connections. Around 23 percent of all residents have access to the internet. Around 0 percent have their own fast internet connection, which is at least faster than the former ISDN (more than 256 kbit/s). All fixed connections via DSL, cable or satellite were counted here, but not those connected to the internet via mobile communications.

The increasing prevalence of cell phones and the simultaneous decline in landline phones clearly indicate a change in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the number of landlines has fallen significantly in recent years, the spread of cell phones has risen to 49 cell phone subscriptions per 100 people at last count. Such a clear shift does not occur in all countries, but the trend points in the same direction internationally.

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