Mobile cellular use explosion in Botswana

Mobile phone use in Botswana has far outpaced Canada's in the last 10 years. Between 2006 and 2015, Botswana mobile cellular subscription per 100 people has grown by 289% while Canada has only grown by 43%.

If you have never heard of Botswana, here are some quick facts about the country from the CIA-The World Factbook. Botswana  is a landlocked country located in southern Africa, north of South Africa. The country is slightly smaller than Texas. It has a population of approx. 2,209 million. The GDP per capita is $16,400(2015 est.). The total Telephone-fixed landlines subscription is 160,490 while the total Telephone-mobile subscription is 3,475 million.

The mobile-cellular use appears to have exploded in Botswana. In 1986, data from The World Bank indicates that mobile cellular subscription in Botswana was non existent while Canada’s was 0.05 per 100 people. Botswana's first mobile cellular use was recorded in 1998 with 0.89 per 100 people, however, by that time Canada's mobile use was ahead with 17.73 per 100 people.

According to an article by Pew Research Centre, the explosion of mobile phone networks in sub-Saharan countries, which includes Botswana, has allowed the people in Africa to jump right into the digital age by skipping the landline stage of development. This argument can be supported by the chart below that shows fixed-telephone use in Botswana compared to Canada's.

The main take away from this chart is that while fixed-telephone use in Botswana remains lower than Canada's, it has never developed as it has in the mobile cellular use. In fact, Aggregate Data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) indicates that fixed-telephone subscription in Africa remains low. As of 2015, it was 1.1 per 100 inhabitants. By contrast, fixed-telephone subscription in the Americas was 25.0.

Botswana's rapid growth in mobile subscription can be attributed to the implementation of a National Information Communication Technology policy in 2007. The vision of the National ICT is to position Botswana as a globally competitive, knowledge and information society where lasting improvement in social, economic and cultural development is achieved through the effective use of ICT. An initiative that the government undertook is the Innovation Hub Project. According to Botswana Investment and Trade, the Innovation Hub is developing a central hub that connects ICT enterprise and Research and Development institutes with Botswana's public and private sectors. Some sectors identified are communications and security, e-health,e-education,e-tourism and mobile access to e-government.

 At the Mobile Innovation Road show (MIR) held in 2013, Dikagiso Mokotedi, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science, and Technology, said that "Like most developed economies, it is our aspiration to reach a stage where Botswana shall be innovation driven." By investing heavily in the mobile cellular technology, the government encourages innovators to find solutions that helps the population. It looks like the government effort has paid off. Not only was Botswana's mobile use the highest in Africa by 2015, it has surpassed Canada and the United States!

Can you find Botswana on this map?