MTN Uganda, Airtel Uganda, and the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) have been sued over the disruption of communication services during Uganda’s internet shutdown.
The case, which raises questions about legality, accountability, and due process, highlights another, less discussed issue: what are the service guarantees when connectivity is deliberately restricted by a government?
The internet shutdown exposed the limits of service level agreements (SLAs) in situations where downtime is enforced rather than accidental.
Most disruptions anticipated in digital service agreements are technical in nature, like fiber cuts, power failures, or equipment faults. Uganda’s shutdown, by contrast, was the result of a government directive.
Service level agreements are contracts that outline the service and level of performance customers should expect from a service provider. They help organizations define performance standards and improve customer satisfaction.
In telecommunications, they define expectations around availability, reliability, response times, fault resolution, and in some cases, compensation when services fail.
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These agreements are built on an assumption that outages are the result of technical or operational failures that fall within the service provider’s control.
Thus, disruptions are treated as engineering problems like equipment failure or power outages. Providers are expected to respond within defined timelines.
If they do not, service credits or penalties may apply. In simple terms, a SLA functions as a tool for allocating risk and responsibility between provider and customer.
What SLAs are not designed to address are interruptions that are neither accidental nor technical. They do not account for scenarios in which providers are instructed by government authorities to restrict or disable services, even when the underlying infrastructure remains fully functional.
From the customer’s perspective, however, the distinction matters little. The service is still unavailable.
Government-sanctioned internet shutdowns therefore sit outside the assumptions on which most SLAs are built. When authorities issue directives requiring providers to restrict connectivity, providers are placed in a dual role: contractual service providers and executors of state policy.
In Uganda’s case, providers complied with regulatory instructions during the election period, resulting in service disruption through authoritative intervention.
SLAs typically classify such events under legal compliance or force majeure clauses, effectively absolving providers of liability. These clauses explain why providers are not required to offer compensation or guarantees during enforced outages.
What they do not address is the user experience. Such clauses are not designed to ensure clarity, continuity, or meaningful communication during periods of restriction.
Hence, they offer little comfort to customers who lose connectivity or experience disruptions of internet-dependent services, and there is often no clear recourse, compensation, or even consistent communication.
This creates a breakdown not only in service delivery but also in the accountability framework meant to govern it, especially for users who entered agreements with service providers, not regulators.
Under normal circumstances, SLAs at least provide a framework for response. Outages are logged, support channels are activated, and customers receive estimates for restoration.
READ: Uganda Partially Restores Internet After Five-Day Shutdown
Government-sanctioned shutdowns bypass much of this process. There are often no service notifications, no clear timelines, and no formal acknowledgement within the contractual relationship between provider and customer.
This makes it harder for users to make informed decisions, for businesses to plan continuity measures, and for providers to communicate transparently without risking regulatory non-compliance.
SLAs seem anchored to a model of outages as rare and accidental events. When deliberate restrictions and censorships enter the picture, the framework shows its limits.
The contractual and operational models governing internet and connectivity have not kept pace with how the internet is now governed. Until they do, accountability during shutdowns may remain difficult to trace or enforce.
