Lesotho Communications - 2024

Telephones - fixed lines

total subscriptions: 6,744 (2022 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: (2021 est.) less than 1

Telephones - mobile cellular

total subscriptions: 1,821,374 (2021 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 80 (2021 est.)

Telecommunication systems

general assessment: until late 2020, Lesotho’s telecom regulator maintained a market duopoly which is focused on fixed-line services; competition was insufficient to promote effective price reductions for consumers, while the regulator had no mechanisms in place to monitor the telcos to ensure quality of service and fair pricing for consumers; the small size of the country’s population provided little incentive for new players to enter the market; a positive outcome for consumers was the deployment in early 2021 of a service to monitor traffic and billing; this ended the practice whereby the regulator was dependent on telcos submitting data about their performance, billing, and other matters; the regulator has also turned its attention to addressing multiple SIM ownership and stemming incidences of crimes committed using unregistered SIMs; in May 2022, it instructed the country’s Mobile Network Operators to begin registering SIM cards on their networks from the following month; fixed-wireless 5G trials began in early 2019 (2022)

domestic: fixed-line is less than 1 per 100 subscriptions; mobile-cellular service subscribership is 80 per 100 persons (2021)

international: country code - 266; Internet accessibility has improved with several submarine fiber optic cables that land on African east and west coasts, but the country's land locked position makes access prices expensive; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2019)

Broadcast media

1 state-owned TV station and 2 state-owned radio stations; most private broadcast media transmitters are connected to government radio signal towers; satellite TV subscription service available; transmissions of multiple international broadcasters obtainable (2019)

Internet country code

.ls

Internet users

total: 1.104 million (2021 est.)

percent of population: 48% (2021 est.)

Broadband - fixed subscriptions

total: 5,060 (2020 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 0.2 (2020 est.)