07 Mar 2019

The Minister of Transport and Communications, Ms Dorcas Makgato, says the national roll–out of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) covers 56 per cent of the population.

Answering a question in Parliament on Tuesday, Ms Makgato said the coverage entailed 44 villages, towns and cities.

“More villages will be connected as operators continue to upgrade and rollout high capacity networks capable of offering 4G services,” she said.

Ms Makgato defined ‘4G as a wireless technology which provides for speeds of up to 40 Megabites per second.’

She said at that speed, users could watch movies online as compared to 2G and 3G, where movies would be too slow to watch online.

Ms Makgato further explained that as per National Broadband Strategy (NBS), which was approved in 2018, it was planned that by 2011, all locations with at least 10 000 inhabitants would have 4G broadband network.

She said those were the areas which had been identified to have the required critical mass to support broadband infrastructure without the need for a subsidy.

The minister however said she was unable to state when the full coverage of 100 per cent would be attained for Botswana.

She nevertheless stated that as Botswana push towards a knowledge economy during the current plan period (NDP 11) every effort would be made to attain full coverage sooner than later.

Specially elected Member of Parliament, Mr Mephato Reatile, had asked the minister to update the house on the progress of the 4G network coverage in Botswana in percentage.

He further wanted the minister to talk about the 4G speed and to further state when Botswana would get full coverage. Ends