
Telecommunication in Zambia
Compared to the United States, Zambia is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +260, there were a total of 20.31 million connections in 2021. Among them were 20.25 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.0 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 16,571 webhosts, Zambia is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 745 of these, or about 4 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Zambia
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 9.3 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Zambia ranks 156th in an international comparison. The upload rate was 9.6 Mbit/second (133rd place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Zambia comes 122nd with a download speed of 14.45 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 9 Mbit was enough for 102nd place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2023 from 180 countries.
This is how much a mobile phone contract costs in Zambia
Every year, the International Telecommunication Union calculates for many countries what a mobile phone contract costs to use. A monthly budget averaging US$ 8.20 was calculated Zambia in 2021. Compared to the previous year, this amount increased by 1 cents.The ITU refers to the costs for monthly use and includes 140 telephony minutes, 70 text messages and a data transfer of 2 GBytes. The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 2 GBytes do not sound much. However, this is already quite a high consumption in a worldwide comparison. If one does not take a fixed amount in US dollars, but converts it to the economic output per inhabitant, a user in Zambia spends 9.6% of his gross national income on mobile telephony. Worldwide, this rate is around 6.6 percent.
In the USA, the monthly cost was around $41.80.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in Zambia from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in Zambia 2000 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
► All international calling codes
Distribution in 2021 | Zambia Total | Zambia percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 4.13 m | 21.23 % | 304.52 m | 91.75 % |
Broadband users | 80,592.00 | 0.41 % | 125.89 m | 37.93 % |
Landlines | 65,913.00 | 0.34 % | 97.82 m | 29.47 % |
Mobile cellulars | 20.25 m | 103.97 % | 361.66 m | 108.97 % |