Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) plans to invest more than P240 million (US$17.8 million) in the 2026/27 financial year to advance network modernisation, with a focus on accelerating 5G deployment, expanding 4G coverage and upgrading network capacity.
This is in addition to the more than P225.5 million (US$16.7 million) invested in the previous financial year to modernise its network infrastructure, expand coverage and meet current and future customer needs.
The plans and achievements are detailed in BTC's recently released 2026 Integrated Report.
BTC projects the commercial launch of 5G in strategic areas in Gaborone to be completed in October.
“This will be followed by an accelerated rollout to other cities and key villages, further strengthening nationwide access to next-generation connectivity,” the operator stated.
By deploying 5G, BTC will join Mascom Wireless and Orange Botswana, which both launched commercial 5G services in 2022.
BTC also plans to complete other projects, including 599 mobile-site capacity upgrades and the migration of customers from copper to fibre and fixed wireless access technologies by October.
“The target is to complete these key initiatives by October 2026, ensuring the timely delivery of improved coverage, capacity and overall customer experience,” BTC said.
Migrating fixed network services from legacy circuit-switched infrastructure to an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem-based platform is scheduled for completion in December 2026.
During the previous financial year, BTC upgraded 151 sites from 2G to 4G and launched Voice over LTE.
It deployed 29 new sites to close coverage gaps and relieve congestion at existing sites, and created an Internet Packet Telephony gateway in Francistown, the country’s second city, for international route diversity.
Jürgen Peschel, chief executive officer of BTC, said: “We have now fully modernised our mobile network. At all sites where we previously offered voice services across the country, data is now available, and at sites where data was already provided, capacity has been increased by up to fivefold.”
In terms of population coverage, BTC, which is 51% government-owned, has 97% coverage for 2G and 4G and 62% for 3G.
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