A 120 Mbps broadband service has been launched in certain parts of Namibia.

The service, from Telecom Namibia, forms part of the latest in a series of broadband upgrades since the West Africa Cable System (WACS) became operational in 2012.

"Using fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband technology, the 120 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload Speedlink LitePlus service will be available from today (19 September 2014) for households and businesses at Maerua Mall in Windhoek, the Swakopmund CBD area and the Omeya Residential and Golf Estate, with plans to gradually expand the service to other towns and business districts in the country," said the company in a statement last week.

Furthermore, Telecom Namibia said all Speedlink customers in the country "will be upgraded to a higher speed at the same monthly charge, while others will benefit from a reduction in their monthly charge."

"All existing Speedlink customers will be upgraded based on an agreed matrix," said Telecom Namibia in a statement.

"Home customers, for example, benefit from 33% link speed improvement on the entry level package and up to 100% on the higher packages. For instance, this means that business packages are upgraded from 384k to 512k representing 33%, while entry packages upgraded from 512k to 1024k represent a 100% link improvement. New and existing customers will derive savings of up to 42% from the upgrade without additional costs to them," said the company.

Upgrades in Namibia's broadband infrastructure come amid the country's low internet penetration rates.

Statistics from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) country profile claim that 13.9% of Namibia's 2.2 million population is using the internet.