  Telecommunication reforms in Zambia and the subsequent liberalisation of the
international gateway was perceived as one of the means of promoting social and
economic growth in both the urban and rural areas of the country. The outcome
of this undertaking propelled the rapid development of Internet which has
evidently brought about unprecedented paradigm shifts in the use of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It is indisputable that ICTs, and the
Internet in particular, have revolutionalised the way we communicate today.
Furthermore, the penetration of ICTs to other spheres of our daily lives is
evidence enough that the impacts thereof go beyond mere communicative facets of
our lives. However, many challenges arose in the implementation of
telecommunications reforms. In order to achieve the status quo, government had
to make strategic liberalisation policies in the telecoms sector that saw the
opening up of the international communication gateways to the private sector.
This is in tandem with the fact that the relationship between government
(through its formulation of policies and regulations) and other stakeholders
determines the ability of a country to generate and use advanced knowledge for
industrial competitiveness. As such, in this paper, we present the genesis and
evaluate the impacts associated with the telecommunications reforms and the
subsequent liberalisation of international communication gateways, and Internet
development in Zambia. We further consider the challenges this has brought
about and discuss possible future directions. This is helpful in forecasting
the future landscape of the ICT sector considering that the country seeks to
achieve universal coverage of both Internet and communication facilities to all
Zambians across the country.
