Of Zambia's 66,935 kilometers (41,500 miles) of roads, relatively few are of good quality and paved except for those routes linking Lusaka to main border posts. The publicly-owned Zambia Railways (ZR) controls most of the 2,169 kilometers (1,345 miles) of national rail infrastructure . Rail routes to regional seaports are very important because Zambia is landlocked. The railway track linking Zambia to the seaport of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania is jointly run by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TZRA), which is not part of ZR. Other seaports used for Zambia's imports and exports are Beria in Mozambique, Durban in South Africa, and Walvis Bay in Namibia. Lusaka International is Zambia's primary airport; the main secondary airports are based at Ndola, Livingstone, and Mfuwe. All of these airports are run by the publicly-owned National Airport Corporation (NAC).
The state-owned Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) produced 8.16 billion kilowatts (kWh) of electricity in 1998 using hydropower. Of this, 1.2 billion kWh was exported. However, the use of commercial energy within the country declined by an annual average of 1.7 percent between 1980 and 1997, whereas the use of traditional fuels as a percentage of total energy use rose from 37.4 percent in 1980 to 73.1 percent in 1996. This increased reliance on traditional energy sources, mainly wood, means that Zambia's environment is threatened by deforestation which, in turn, creates soil erosion and a subsequent decrease in arable land.
The state-owned Zambia Telecommunications Company (ZAMTEL) is the national provider of telecommunication services (predominantly telephone lines). ZAMTEL is planned to be partially privatized. Although generally adequate, Zambia's telecommunications can be unreliable, particularly during rainy seasons. A cellular telephone service is available in Lusaka and
| Communications | |||||||||
| Country | Newspapers | Radios | TV Sets a | Cabl subscribers a | Mobile Phones a | Fax Machines a | Personal Computers a | Internet Hosts b | Internet Users b |
| 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1999 | 1999 | |
| Zambia | 12 | 121 | 137 | N/A | 1 | 0.1 | N/A | 0.48 | 15 |
| United States | 215 | 2,146 | 847 | 244.3 | 256 | 78.4 | 458.6 | 1,508.77 | 74,100 |
| South Africa | 32 | 317 | 125 | N/A | 56 | 3.5 | 47.4 | 33.36 | 1,820 |
| Dem. Rep. of Congo | 3 | 375 | 135 | N/A | 0 | N/A | N/A | 0.00 | 1 |
| a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999 and are per 1,000 people. | |||||||||
| b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people. | |||||||||
| SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000. | |||||||||
other built-up areas. Fax machines are widely used, and the Internet is becoming an increasingly popular means of communication for those few who are fortunate enough to have access.