Country Reports

Botswana

Highlights

  1. Internet Society rates the choice of Internet service providers as good.
  2. Internet Society gives Botswana an overall Internet resilience score of 34%, which means it has medium capacity to withstand unexpected faults or challenges to normal operation.
  3. Approximately 77% of the population is an Internet user.
  4. Out of the 1000 most-visited websites, 63% can be reached on a local server or cache in Botswana. This exceeds Internet Society's target of 50%.
  5. As of 2023, the population of Botswana was 2,480,244. The United Nations defines it as a land-locked developing country.

Internet Usage Permanent link

Internet penetration

77%

of the population used the Internet at least once over a 3-month period

42%
Africa average

Usage by gender

Proportion of the population that uses the Internet, by gender

  • Female: 34%
  • Male: 40%

Note: Measurement methods vary by country.

Average download speed

Based on an average of 300 users

  • 7.79 Mbps

    Broadband

  • 42.82 Mbps

    Mobile

Average Internet cost

1.76%

of average income (GNI) is needed to cover a low-consumption basket, using at least 3G technology.

Network Infrastructure Permanent link

Mobile 4G and 5G coverage

99%

has access to at least one device with 4G mobile Internet

10%

has access to at least one device with 5G mobile Internet

Active networks

The building blocks of the Internet, identified by Autonomous System (AS) numbers.

27

active networks

International connections

Routes to the global Internet

Upstream diversity is

Poor

More than 2 connections to the global Internet improves the ability to recover from unexpected events.

Adoption of IPv6

1%

of users can access online resources using IPv6, the new generation of the Internet Protocol

7%
Africa average

Market Overview Permanent link

Locally cached content

63%

of the top 1000 websites in Botswana can be accessed through an in-country server or cache

28%
Africa average

Top Internet service providers

Top Internet Service Providers (ISPs) by market share

  • Mascom-Wireless-Botswana: 31%
  • BTC-GATE1: 31%
  • OBO: 19%
  • BOFINET: 5%
  • Stature-PTY-LTD: 3%

Digital public services rating

The UN's measure of a country's e-government ecosystem readiness

52%

Country-level domain use

12,000

domains registered using .bw, the country code top-level domain (ccTLD).

Market competition

Good

market competitiveness for Internet customers and end users

Security Permanent link

Global Cybersecurity Index

Estimates the ability of a country or economy to prevent and manage cyber incidents

53 / 100

Routing security practices

The use of resource public key infrastructure (RPKI), which connects IP prefixes to the correct autonomous system (AS)

ROA

Route origin authorization uses a cryptographic signature to certify network announcements

  • 62%
    of IPv4 prefixes protected
  • 50%
    of IPv6 prefixes protected

ROV

Route origin validation filters out route announcements

  • 1%
    of networks are using ROV to filter out invalid prefixes and networks

DNSSEC status

  • Active

DNSSEC coverage

0%

of all domains under the ccTLD are protected with DNSSEC

7%
Africa average

Adoption of DNSSEC

70%

of DNS queries are protected by DNSSEC, across all web traffic

57%
Africa average

Footnotes Permanent link

The geographic boundaries and country names shown do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Internet Society concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities. Regions and Sub-Regions are taken from the UN Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (Series M, No. 49).

Pulse uses the most recent possible data from international sources. For some indicators in Pulse, the source data may be updated more frequently. For more information on how often we update individual data points, see the Indicator page.