
Mobile communications and Internet in Rwanda
Compared to the United States, Rwanda is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +250, there were a total of 10.91 million connections in 2021. Among them were 10.90 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.81 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 1,447 webhosts, Rwanda is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 1,061 of these, or about 73 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
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Internet speed for cell phones and fixed network
With an average download speed of 31.99 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Rwanda ranks 112nd in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 10.09 Mbit/second was significantly lower (128th place).The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2023 from 180 countries.
Mobile phone rates in Rwanda
Every year, the International Telecommunication Union calculates for many countries what a mobile phone contract costs to use. A monthly budget averaging US$ 7.00 was calculated Rwanda in 2021. This is about the same value as in the previous year.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 The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 2 GBytes do not sound much.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 Rwanda spends 11.10% of his gross national income on mobile telephony. Worldwide, this rate is around 6.6 percent.
In the USA, the monthly cost was around $38.10.
Lack of network coverage with 5G
A modern 5G network does not yet exist in Rwanda (as of 2021). The penetration rate of 4G, i.e., mobile communications with at least LTE speed, was recently 98.07 percent. In other words, 259,814.44 people in the country had to make do with a maximum Internet speed of the outdated UMTS standard (or even less).The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's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 Rwanda from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in Rwanda 2004 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
► All international calling codes
Distribution in 2021 | Rwanda Total | Rwanda percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 4.10 m | 30.46 % | 304.52 m | 91.75 % |
Broadband users | 31,902.00 | 0.24 % | 125.89 m | 37.93 % |
Landlines | 11,893.00 | 0.09 % | 97.82 m | 29.47 % |
Mobile cellulars | 10.90 m | 80.99 % | 361.66 m | 108.97 % |