Telecommunication in Zambia

Compared to the European Union, Zambia is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +260, there were a total of 19.18 m connections in 2020. Among them were 19.10 m million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.0 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.

In the expansion of broadband Internet connections, Zambia is back. Around 19% 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 16,571 webhosts, Zambia is below the world's average by population.

Back to overview: Zambia

Development of telephone and internet connections

With an average download speed of 15.10 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Zambia ranked 152nd in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 13.83 Mbit/second (121st 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, Zambia comes 127th with a download speed of 16.52 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 8 Mbit was only enough for 125th 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 Zambia from 1990 - 2019

Broadband internet in Zambia 2000 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020

Mobile phones 1990 - 2020

Distribution in 2020	Zambia Total	Zambia percent	EU Total	EU percent
Broadband users	82,317.00	0.45 %	162.67 m	36.33 %
Landlines	71,844.00	0.39 %	159.99 m	35.73 %
Mobile cellulars	19.10 m	103.92 %	541.96 m	121.03 %