The National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U), with funding from the government of Uganda, conducted the National Information Technology (IT) Survey 2022 to provide data and information. The survey indicated that 94.3% of households in Uganda lack home internet access among other findings.
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The study investigated whether households had access to the internet, the number of household members that
used the internet, the kind of devices connected to the internet, and the average expenditure of the household on
internet access. For households that lacked internet access, the study explored the reasons for the lack of a working
internet connection.
Only 5.7% of households reported having a working internet connection at home. Over four times more homes (13.4%) in urban areas reported having a working internet connection compared to only 3.2% of households in rural areas. Figure 88 depicts that when disaggregated by sub-regions, Kampala (the capital city) and the regions around it had the largest number of places with internet access. Buganda South had one in four households (24.6%) with internet access. Kampala had 17.0%, and Buganda North had 11.5% of homes with internet access. The Acholi, Bukedi, and Elgon sub-regions each had 7% of the homes with internet access, while the rest of the regions had less than 5% of the families with internet access.
Households with a working internet connection (5.7%) used a variety of technologies to access the internet as
indicated below. Using a mobile phone or smartphone as a modem was the most common method (61.4%),
followed by using a USB dongle/MiFi (26.5%).
Most households (94.3%) did not have internet access at home. The survey asked the reasons why households
lacked a working internet connection at home. Cost of equipment too high (48.3%), cost of service too high (40.1%)
and do not know how to use it (30.4%) were the top three primary reasons for not having a working internet
connection at home. Lack of knowledge was the most common reason cited in 2017/18, while the cost of equipment was ranked third and the cost of the internet being high was ranked fifth. The results mirror the findings of the UNHS 2019/20 in terms of reasons for not using the internet.
Cost of Internet in Uganda
On average, homes spent UGX 25,000 per month on internet access. On average, urban households spent more
(UGX 30,000) per month on internet access compared to rural households (UGX 18,000). There were more rural
households (42.7%) in the lowest expenditure range of 0 to UGX 10,000 per month compared to urban households
(28%). Overall, 33.8% of the households spent in this category.
One in five (20.7%) of the households spent within the next category of UGX 10,001 to UGX 20,000 per month. In terms of location, there were more urban homes (24.3%) compared to rural households (15.2%). Those who spent within the range of UGX 20,001 to UGX 30,000 were 15.1%, and those who spent over 100,000 UGX were 16.3%. Urban and rural household expenditures in both cases were comparable.
The NITA Uganda survey collected data on a number of household characteristics. Enumerators listed 19,700 homes across 263 visited Enumeration Areas (EAs). From these homes, the survey team randomly selected 15 households per EA, or a total of 3,945 homes to be interviewed. Among the sampled households, 72.6% provided full data (both household and individual), 13.6% provided partial data (only household data; the sampled individual was not available for interview), 2.9% were home but refused to consent to the survey and 10.9% were found to have no one at home.
Overall, the national average household size was five persons per household, in line with the national average
household size according to the recent 2019/20 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) conducted by UBOS.
The most minor household was one person, while the largest was 25 people. The average household size was larger in rural areas (5 people) compared to urban areas (4 people).
