
Telecommunication in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Compared to the United States, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +243, there were a total of 46.89 million connections in 2021. Among them were 46.89 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.49 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 2,515 webhosts, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 345 of these, or about 14 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Congo (Dem. Republic)
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 The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 2 GBytes do not sound much.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

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
► All international calling codes
Distribution in 2021 | Congo (Dem. Republic) Total | Congo (Dem. Republic) percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 21.96 m | 22.90 % | 304.52 m | 91.75 % |
Broadband users | 31,000.00 | 0.03 % | 125.89 m | 37.93 % |
Mobile cellulars | 46.89 m | 48.89 % | 361.66 m | 108.97 % |