World Report

The earth station in Lusaka gives Zambia direct telephone, telex, email and TV links with the rest of the world

ith fewer than 100,000 fixed line subscribers and a population of 11 million, there is enormous scope for expansion in Zambia’s liberalised telecommunications sector.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the state-owned Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel) is busy extending and modernising its services. Dubby Douglas Mutesha, the company’s Managing Director, is in no doubt about the contribution that Zamtel has to make to the nation’s future. “Communication brings development. It is vital to the development of this country,” he says.

Old analogue systems are gradually being replaced with digital systems. So far, the whole of Zambia’s Eastern Province has been digitalised and the Southern Province is nearing completion.

The company recently finalised installation of its intelligent network (IN) and is introducing a pre-paid landline service called Tel Z. “Starting from Lusaka, we will expand it in all the areas where there are digital links and digital exchanges,” says Mr Mutesha.

An expanded network is being launched for Zamtel’s one-year old cellular phone operation, Cell Z, which competes with two other mobile companies. This will provide the capacity for 240,000 subscribers.

Dubby Douglas Mutesha
Managing Director of Zamtel

‘Communication brings development and is vital to this country’

Efforts are also being made to extend services to the rural areas. “As a state-owned company we have a public service obligation to take telephones to the rural areas,” Mr Mutesha explains.

“We are working with the Telecommunications Authority of Zambia to set up a rural development fund that will go a long way to improve the speed at which we meet the need for communications.”

Zamtel has been using its own funds to develop its services. Mr Mutesha says: “We used to depend on the government and various organisations to fund our expansion programmes but now we are doing most of the projects from the money that we generate from the collection of subscriptions.”