The Zambian government has revealed that more than 10 million people in the country are connected to mobile phone communication.

This means that 73% of the southern African country’s population has connection to mobile phones, while 27% is yet to be connected.

Zambia's population currently stands at 14 million people, according to the World Bank.

The figure has elated the Zambian government, which now promises to connect the whole country to mobile phone communication by 2016.

Ministry of communications and transport permanent secretary, Charles Sipanje said the Zambian government through the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) will soon embark on a programme to connect the whole country.

“This will be done by erecting more communication towers in remote rural areas of the country,” Sipanje said.

Sipanje said the Zambian government's desire is to see more people accessing mobile phone communication services in the country.

But to achieve this, the Zambian government will have to first invest more in connecting rural areas to the national grid.

Currently, some of the 169 mobile phone towers that the Zambian government has put up in rural areas are still not functional due to lack of power from the national grid.

Zambia, like many other countries in the region, is facing power shortages that has forced the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation to load shed the country on a daily basis.

On the other hand, the Zambian government says running base station using diesel is expensive and unsustainable.

This means that the Zambian government has first to invest in connecting more rural areas to the national grid to be able to run base stations. However, this will require huge sums of money and delay the project.

Commenting on some of the issues Sipanje said the programme to contruct towers will start sometime this year and rural areas will only be connected to mobile phone communication next year.

Sipanje noted that the cost of the project and how many towers will be constructed only be known after an assessment of rural areas. The months when the project to construct the towers will start and end are not yet known, he said.