Zambia’s government expects the roll-out of 270 telecom towers in rural areas across the southern African country to begin in April this year.

A tender for the installation of the communication towers will soon be advertised, says the minister of communications and transport.

The cost of the project has however, not been revealed.

The minister said improved communication in the country will result in efficient business transactions.

“We will soon advertise the tender for the construction of the towers and the project is expected to start in April this year,” Yamfwa Mukanga said.

The Zambian government through the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) is already building 169 towers in rural areas costing $24 million. The towers are aimed at boosting communication services.

The project to construct the 169 towers was financed by the Chinese government and the tender was awarded to China’s Huawei Technologies.

It is not clear at the moment why there is a different tender for the construction of towers in rural areas and the Zambian government has not said who is financing the project for 270 towers.

A recent report by the Consumer Unity Trust Society (CUTS) revealed that communication towers in Zambia’s rural areas do not meet technical or legal requirements as they fall short of meeting 5km macro-coverage requirement specified in the bidding document.

According to the Zambian government, there are millions of people in rural areas that are not connected to telecoms services.

The country’s three operators MTN, Airtel and Zamtel - are all expected to be connected to the towers. They will be paying fees to ZICTA for the usage of the towers.

The Zambian government also believes that the countrywide installation of towers may help reduce the cost of installations that operators incur when installing their own towers and hence bring down call and internet costs in the country.

Zambia has more than 5 million people who are reportedly not subscribed to mobile communication services and most of them live in isolated remote rural areas, according to the 2012 study by Wireless Intelligence.