Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel) says it has begun to install online charging system equipment that the company will use to double its subscriber base by 2023.

The company said the US$5.7-million equipment, to be installed over three months, will make the subscriber management process easier. It will also increase the company’s active subscriber capacity from the current near 4 million to 10 million.

The company said it is currently operating at over 97% capacity utilisation, with an active subscriber base of 3.7 million.

Zamtel CEO Sydney Mupeta said the installation of new online charging system is a huge milestone in positioning the company for future growth.

He said the old system was constraining growth as it limited the number of new customers that could be added to the network.

“We had a number of customers who were falling off the network because their numbers were reassigned due to inactivity and they could not be re-added because the system has reached near capacity and that proved to be frustrating to such customers. This new online charging system will now address those aspects. The new charging system will also involve migration of all Zamtel customers to the new system which might cause minimal disruption of service.”

State-owned Zamtel is currently the smallest operator in the country and faces stiff competition from South Africa’s MTN Zambia, the country’s largest operator with over six million customers and Airtel Zambia in the second position with more than five million subscribers.