
Telecommunication in Lesotho
Compared to the European Union, Lesotho is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +266, there were a total of 1.57 million connections in 2020. Among them were 1.56 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.73 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 11,030 webhosts, Lesotho is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 150 million of these, or about 1 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Lesotho
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 13.72 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Lesotho ranked 133rd in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 10.69 Mbit/second (101st place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 44th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Lesotho comes th with a download speed of 0 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 0 Mbit was enough for th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in Lesotho from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in Lesotho 2004 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | Lesotho Total | Lesotho percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 921,168.36 | 43.00 % | 379.48 m | 84.74 % |
Broadband users | 5,060.00 | 0.24 % | 163.72 m | 36.56 % |
Landlines | 11,574.00 | 0.54 % | 160.15 m | 35.76 % |
Mobile cellulars | 1.56 m | 72.94 % | 540.56 m | 120.71 % |