Effective Monday, July 19, internet service providers are expected to reap big from a windfall in data revenues, as majority shift to remote working, over restriction of movement in some parts of the country. A lockdown recently imposed in eleven districts including the City of Kigali, will mean a massive traffic for employees meeting virtually to consume data-enabled content. This is in line with the governments efforts to mitigate the virus spread. However, as businesses transition to remote working environments, employees are concerned that being supported with safe, quality internet is more important now than ever. Sources who spoke to The New Times on Sunday cited unreliable home broadband connectivity, cyber security issues commonly knows as IT pains as the primary technical challenges businesses are having to deal during remote working. The say that competent authorities should do anything to improve their services as it is interfering with their daily work. “Before I had no worse issues with MTN but when the pandemic hit, things started getting bad from calls to internet, and for someone like me who was having online classes sometimes I would miss class for 15 minutes, decried Marie Josee Ishimwe a student at Mount Kenya university. Emmanuel Uwayo, a copyrighter says he has been forced to shift from one mobile network to another in search for better mobile network. Previously, I used MTN for everything but you can hardly stand their internet connectivity. It is important that they look into the issue, especially now that most of us will be working remotely from our homes. While majority pinned MTN network, which is also the lagest local mobile network, sources say that its rival Airtel Rwanda, should find strategic means of improving even the minor challenges that exist. “I use Airtel for internet, I have not faced any major issues with it but sometimes it does act up and I would try at least change locations at my place to see if I can find better connectivity, said Evans Kwizera. Telecommunication companies should try and find solutions for these problems, clients believe. Mobile networks speak out The New Times reached out to MTN Rwanda on Sunday to ask what they thought about the complaints and Yvonne Mubiligi, Head of Corporate Affairs said, We reassure the public that previous complaints were addressed, and we plan to progressively improve our services. She disclosed that for the past month, MTN Rwanda has been constructing new cites to improve the telcos capacity. We are increasingly boosting out capacity in several parts of the country to see that this can change. This is part of bigger role to improve our networks services. Efforts to get a comment from Airtel were futile by press time. Fibre to home, affordable packages key In this period, where majority are will be required to work from the comfort of their homes, experts say that homes should shift to Fibre installation which can be used for multiple members of the family. Information from the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) indicates that revenues earned by all internet providers in the first quarter of 2021 grew to Rwf65,481,202,724 up from Rwf52,112,851,233 recorded during the same period in 2019. This is approximately 25 percent increase. According to the findings, the highest number of fixed internet subscription was connected to the fibre to home/ facility while lowest were connected on satellite and DSL technology.
