The story
BTC was established in 1980 to provide, develop, operate and manage Botswana's national and international telecommunications services. BTC was a parastatal in which the Botswana government held 100% equity. BTC was the only telecommunications provider in Botswana until 1996 when an amendment of the BTC Act removed the monopoly of BTC and allowed indirect competition from two cellular companies, Mascom and Orange Botswana.
BTC's network is composed of an all-digital microwave and fibre optic system with digital exchanges at the main centres. The current network comprises 7,300 kilometres of microwave radio and fibre optic links between 12 main processors, each serving a specific area of the country. The switching units have a capacity of about 117,000 lines. Current services provided include national and international telephony, managed and data networks, very small aperture terminal (VSAT), private wires, leased circuits, toll free services, Internet, paging, public telephones, voice messaging, telex, packet switching, telegraph and customer premises.
BTC works closely with the two major mobile operators in Botswana namely Mascom and Orange Botswana. In 2008 BTC established a mobile arm, beMOBILE. On 1 November 2012 BTC was converted to and registered as a public company, Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL). It is the first state owned enterprise to be privatised and is the only public-listed telecommunications company on the Botswana Stock Exchange since 2016. Government of Botswana currently owns (54.16%) of the issued shares capital, with 51% being held through a Special Purpose Entity known as Botswana Privatisation Asset Holdings and the remainder through its relevant ministry. The remaining 45.84% is held by local companies, private individuals and trusts.
BTCL also provides virtual telephony services, paging and data communication for corporate networks.
From Wikipedia’s article on Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4