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 m connections in 2020. Among them were 1.56 m 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.

In the expansion of broadband Internet connections, Lesotho is back. Around 42% of all residents have access to the Internet. Approximately 0% have their own fast Internet connection, which is at least faster than the previous ISDN (more than 2048 kbit/s).

With about 11,030 webhosts, Lesotho is below the world's average by population.

Back to overview: Lesotho

Development of telephone and internet connections

With an average download speed of 19.64 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Lesotho ranked 137th in an international comparison. The upload rate was 20.31 Mbit/second (97th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 20th 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 Mai 2021 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 - 2019

Broadband internet in Lesotho 2004 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020

Mobile phones 1990 - 2020

Distribution in 2020	Lesotho Total	Lesotho percent	EU Total	EU percent
Broadband users	5,060.00	0.24 %	162.67 m	36.33 %
Landlines	11,574.00	0.54 %	159.99 m	35.73 %
Mobile cellulars	1.56 m	72.94 %	541.96 m	121.03 %