UCC Declares War on Telecom Greed: Kampala’s Messy “Fiber Wars” Finally Getting Shut Down!
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has officially had enough of telecom giants turning the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area into a chaotic, tangled spiderweb of overlapping internet cables.
In a fierce public notice dated March 23, 2026, the regulator ordered an immediate end to the uncoordinated and reckless dumping of utility poles across the city. If these service providers want to lay down optical fiber, they must now secure strict approval first instead of doing whatever they want.
For years, rival networks have engaged in a selfish “fiber war,” refusing to share infrastructure and choosing instead to drill their own ugly poles side-by-side just to mark territory.
UCC’s new framework, which quietly took effect on January 1, 2026, forces these multi-billion corporations to either bury their cables underground or start sharing existing lines.
The commission also issued a heavy warning against damaging existing underground networks during road construction, signaling an end to the careless trenching that ruins city streets.
This brutal crackdown shouldn’t shock anyone who witnessed the intense regulatory chokehold UCC placed on the sector over the last year. Following the aggressive August 2025 government directive to declutter Kampala’s skyline, and the early 2026 drama where UCC fiercely blocked Starlink from bypassing local infrastructure rules to launch direct retail, the regulator is clearly done playing nice.
The state is finally tired of internet providers prioritizing cheap, messy overhead rollouts while treating the capital like a dumping ground.
Will the untouchable telecom cartels actually clean up their visual pollution, or is this just another government directive that will get buried under the rug?
