The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) aims to distribute a total of 150,000 decoders over a three-year period, with an annual rollout target of 50,000 units.
The decoders are equipped with key functionalities to support NBC's digital broadcasting strategy.
The initiative is designed to achieve a household penetration rate of approximately 20% based on the latest data from the 2023 Population and Housing Census, which estimates Namibia's total number of households at 756 339.
NBC Radio Services Administration Manager Nsinde Limbo highlighted NBC's mandate and the budget allocation to NBC in the 2021/2022 up to 2025/2026 financial year, shedding more light on progress made and projects during those periods.
Limbo made the remarks when she gave NBC's operational update at Oshakati during the ICT stakeholders' engagement.
"Our digital and mobile application, which is known as NBC Plus, has achieved over 61,000 subscribers to date. We have also seen an increase in our local content performance because, as the national broadcaster, we are mandated to provide more local content than international content and other regional content, so for TV we have seen local content increase from 30% to now 68%.
Telecom Namibia also gave their presentation, stating that it has spent over N$38 million to extend fibre services to over 7 126 homes and businesses in the north.
At Ongwediva Extension 14 and Ondangwa Extensions 11, 13 and 14 fibre services were completed in March 2026, and customers are connected.
Oshakati extensions 2 and 3 and Ehenye will receive fibre services by 2027, while nine new telecom sites will be rolled out from July this year at Evululuko 1, 2 and 3.
"If we look at our TN mobile services, we are covering 28 sites in the C region; 24 of those are 4G, and for the other 4, we have two GB running for the Katoches (torch phones)," explained Telecom Namibia CEO Dr Stanley Shanapinda.
MTC Chief Technical and Information Officer Monica Nehemia says their network investment and maintenance are heavily reliant on CAPEX investment.
She said more than N$500 million has been invested over more than five years to maintain absolute technologies such as 2G that are used by many users, hence the call for aggressive smartphone adoption.
"We have a total of 1095 towers all over the country. We have been in the market for more than 31 years, and we currently have population coverage of around 95% of all the population we have around our towers. We have deployed a fibre infrastructure of up to 4617 kilometres."