Airtel Africa is planning to invest US$14mn over the next 6 months to build 152 new telecom towers in Zambia to drive network quality and expand coverage.
The sites will be deployed and operated by Airtel Africa's towerco partner in Zambia IHS Towers, which operates a portfolio of 1,875 sites in the market.
Hussam Bady, Managing Director of Airtel Zambia, stated the investment will increase population coverage from 91.6% to 93% by 2026, and 95-96% by 2027.
Augustin Phiri, Acting CEO of IHS Zambia, explained that the rollout will take place in two phases with an initial 50 towers commencing in the coming weeks, followed by an additional 102 towers.
Zambia pushes for digital transformation after a tough 2024
Last year Zambia faced a devastating 5-month drought that led to a several major macro social and economic challenge. But for the telecom sector, it was the declining water availability in the Kariba Damn, Zambia’s largest source of power generation, leading to a 61% decline in energy generation.
After load shedding was introduced to ration electricity, telecom towers had to generate power on-site 12 hours per day, putting huge strain on energy capex and opex for towercos and MNOs.
However, according to the Ministry of Technology and Science, Zambia’s ICT sector grew 17.4% last year despite the negative effects of the drought, making it the fastest growing sector in the economy.
Minister Felix Mutati attributed the success of these efforts to mobile network providers to maintain power to existing towers and ensure network availability by shoring up access to diesel. “We will continue to engage you even more in order to exceed the 17% in the sector”.
MTN, Zambia’s other major pan-African mobile operator, has been working with Huawei to introduce next-generation antenna to accelerate network performance and efficiency; a game changer for 5G expansion.
