Zambia's minister of Communications and Transport Brian Mushimba says the national communication tower project, estimated at a cost of US$300 million and being implemented by the Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel), will increase data service penetration from the current 5% to 40%, and mobile phone penetration from 70% to near 100%.

According to the Ministry over 80 towers are operational and a further 1 009 are scheduled to be erected during this phase.

Mushimba said the government has embarked on a campaign to connect the country to mobile services and bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban populations.

"The project to build communication towers is in line with the government's objective to provide and make possible universal access to ICT which is also embedded in our Seventh National Development Plan covering 2017 to 2021," he said.

Zamtel CEO Sydney Mupeta said the tower project marks an exciting start to the year as Zamtel focuses on aggressive customer acquisition.

Mupeta said the roll out of the sites is a game changer for Zamtel as the company was positioning itself to be at the cutting edge of digital transformation that answered to aspiration of government to deliver a smart Zambia by 2030.

"We are excited that the continuously switching on of these sites will further boost our subscriber base and increase revenues which have been rising over the last few months by impressive proportions," Mupeta added.

Zamtel is the country's smallest operator with about 2 million customers.

The project is expected to be completed in 2019.