WINDHOEK, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Privately-owned pan-African telecom operator, Paratus Namibia, has slashed its data prices by 83.4 percent and the new rates will target consumers according to their specific needs and interests.

At the announcement on Tuesday, Paratus Namibia's managing director, John D'Alton said the telecoms operator has decreased its data pricing on all LTE 4G, WiMAX and Fiber packages from 6.91 U.S. dollars to 1.22 U.S. dollars per Gigabyte.

According to D'Alton, internet access is no longer a luxury, but is a necessity.

"This is the norm that each Namibian is growing accustomed to and we believe that every single person in this country has the right to affordable internet access," he added.

According to statistics from Research ICT Solutions (2018), Namibia rates 29th out of 52 African countries with regards to the cheapest 1 Gigabyte mobile prepaid rates per month for 2018, with a rate of 7.35 U.S. dollar.

"This is cheaper in comparison to other Southern African countries such as South Africa, with a rate of 8.28 U.S. dollars, Botswana (13.40), Democratic Republic of Congo (20.00) and Angola (24.86) per month," he added.

Meanwhile, Paratus Group CE, Barney Harmse said Paratus has established a prolific pan-African telecoms network and will continue to invest in Namibia and the rest of Africa as it has been doing for the past 15 years.

Since inception, Paratus has established a network extending the entire Namibia, with additional international points-of-presence located in Johannesburg (South Africa), Lisbon (Portugal) as well as London (UK).