Ethio telecom

Ethio telecom (), previously known as the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (, ETC), is an Ethiopian telecommunication company serving as the major internet and telephone service provider. Ethio telecom is owned by the Ethiopian government and maintains a monopoly over all telecommunication services in Ethiopia. Based in Addis Ababa, it is one of the "Big-5" group of state owned corporations in Ethiopia, along with Ethiopian Airlines, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, and the Ethiopian Shipping Lines.

Ethio telecom was managed, on a management contract arrangement from 2010 to 2013, by France Télécom, and was required to comply with Ethiopian government orders. The government said it outsourced the management as ETC was not able to meet the demands of the fast-growing country. It also said that telecommunications services would not be privatized, at least not in the near future. Ethio telecom generates a revenue of over US$300 million for the Ethiopian government, and was dubbed a "cash cow" by the previous Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

History

Originally a division of the Ministry of Post, Telephone and Telegraph, what would become the ETC was established as the Imperial Board of Telecommunications of Ethiopia (IBTE) by proclamation No. 131/52 in 1952. Under the Derg regime, the IBTE was reorganized as the Ethiopian telecommunications service in October 1975, which was in turn reorganized in January 1981 as the Ethiopian Telecommunications Authority. In November 1996, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Authority became ETC by Council of Ministers regulation No. 10/1996. The subsequent Proclamation 49/1996 expanded the ETC's duties and responsibilities. For its international traffic links and communication services, ETC mainly uses its earth station at Sululta which transmits and receives to both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean satellites. Engineering consulting firm Arup, were involved in the design and engineering of the early tower structures (during the 1970s).

In late 2006, the ETC signed an agreement worth US$1.5 billion with three Chinese companies, ZTE Corporation, Huawei Technologies and the Chinese International Telecommunication Construction Corporation, to upgrade and expand Ethiopian telecommunications services. This agreement will increase the number of mobile services from 1.5 million to 7 million, land line telephone services from 1 million to 4 million, and expansion of the fibre optic network, from the present 4,000 kilometers to 10,000 by 2010. It is part of a larger US$2.4 billion plan by the Ethiopian government to improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure. In 2018, the mobile service business has reached 85% of the country. In February 2018, it was reported that Ethio telecom had 64.4 million subscribers making it the largest telecommunication services operator in the continent. The operator runs three terrestrial fiber optic cables with a capacity of 42 Gbit/s to connect Ethiopia to the rest of the world via Kenya, Djibouti and Sudan. In August 2019, the company announced that it will install 4G network before other telecom companies enter the Ethiopian market since the government decided that it will liberalize the telecom sector.

Frehiwot Tamru serving as the current Chief Executive Officer since 1 August 2018 preceded by Andualem Admassie who served five years. Frehiwot previously worked as Deputy CEO for Internal Support Service for then Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation. She told Capital that she managed all surveillance quality protocols.

By 26 August 2020, Ethio telecom planned to extended 842 new infrastructure site during 2020 fiscal year. This infrastructure expected to enable the company to host additional 5.2 million new customers. During this fiscal year, the company planned to generate 55.5 billion birr in revenue, a 16pc growth from the last fiscal year. It also plans to boost the country's telecom density to 51.3%. At the end of financial year 2021/22 it generated a revenue of 61.3 billion birr and boosted the country's telecom density to 63.3% after total subscribers reached 66.59 million birr.

In May 2021, Ethio telecom launched Telebirr, a mobile service platform. Frehiwot said 21.8 million users signed up with this service, making total transaction of 30.3 birr. On 10 May 2022, Ethio telecom commenced 5G network for pre-commercial sale in partnership of Huawei Technology after several months upgrading the predecessor 4G network.

Telecommunications in Ethiopia

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As of October 2022, Ethio telecom has been the 23rd largest operator in the world from 781 operators and the 2nd largest operator in Africa from 198 operators. In the time mentioned, the company has 68.3 million subscribers. Its telecom service coverage and density has also reached 99.1% population, 85.4% Geography and 64.5% tele density respectively.
Ethio telecom, with a new beginning and a new perspective, has begun implementing its newly devised three-years LEAD Growth Strategy starting from July 01, 2022, with a vision of providing services beyond connectivity, enabling inclusive growth by providing digital and financial services and simplifying the daily activities of organizations and individuals.
As part of its commitment to realizing digital Ethiopia and of its128 years of resilient journey and togetherness with Ethiopian people in providing telecom services, Ethio telecom commenced 5G network on 10 May 2022 for pre-commercial sale in partnership with Huawei Technology.
Particularly, the 5G network service has been deployed in Addis Ababa, the capital city of the country and the diplomatic seat of international and continental institutions as part of the commitment of the company’s aspiration to become a leading digital solutions provider. Likewise, the company has expanded 5G mobile technology in Adama city on November 2, 2022 on pre-commercial level by considering the existing and enabling conditions to fully expand and market the service in the time ahead.
This latest technology not only meets the ever evolving demands of customers, but can also have a transformative impact on the blossoming businesses activities in Ethiopia and the ongoing national digital economy transformation agenda as well as will highly boost the level of the society’s technology usage.
In addition to this, the company has officially launched Cloud Computing Service as of October 27, 2022, named telecloud which would modernize and empower the day to day business activities of the customers.

The company offers three types/options of cloud services:
# Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) -is a cloud service that allows users to save their personal information from wherever they are, compile and provide various services to their customers.
# Platform as a Service (PaaS)- primarily allows software developers to use a complete database management system (MySQL DB) for their developed software.
# Software as a Service (SaaS)- is a service where customers can get software, paying their license fees using tele cloud for a reasonable price in Birr, which they otherwise would have bought in foreign currency. Our company initially offers the following three services and will continue to offer various additional software.
By using the cloud service, organizations and institutions can avoid the time spent on technology selection, infrastructure construction, training and maintenance, as well as foreign exchange payments, so that they can focus only on their business activities and service quality and avoid unnecessary expenses with the application capacity of the resource utilization expansion based on their need thereby enhancing their competitiveness and productivity.
In May 2021, the company launched mobile service known as telebirr after receiving its license from National Bank of Ethiopia. As of November 2022, telebirr digital payment system has acquired a subscriber base of 25.8 Million, 101 master agents, 81 thousand agents and 22,000 merchants. The platform has also been integrated with 16 banks to transfer money from bank to telebirr and with 11 banks to transfer money from telebirr to bank as well as over 153 billion-electronic money/birr has been transacted. A number of services has been integrated with telebirr digital payment system to ease customers’ hustles being the best digital payment option.
In July 2022, the company launched mobile financial services that comprises micro saving, micro credit service and overdraft service in telebirr for telebirr service users. The telebirr supported micro saving and credit services is aimed at providing micro credit and saving service for telebirr users to transform the financial inclusion landscapes for inaccessibility to formal financial services as well as to support small business cash needs.
Over the years, ethio telecom has been the only state owned telecom service provider in Ethiopia. However, following the country’s political administration change and reform, license was given to Safaricom telecommunications Ethiopia and has now fully operation in Ethiopia since August 2022. Furthermore, international bid is floating to partially privatize the company. There will be multiple telecom operators in the race in not the distant future.

Censorship

According to reports by the OpenNet Initiative and Freedom House, the Ethiopian government through Ethio telecom imposes nationwide, politically motivated internet filtering. Under a 2012 law regulating the telecommunication industry, attempts by journalists to circumvent Ethio telecom surveillance and censorship of the internet could be interpreted as a criminal offense carrying a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

Most blocked sites are those run by Ethiopians in the diaspora who are highly critical of the government, however, Ethio telecom has also intermittently blocked access to other sites. In 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists site was blocked for several months after it reported the arrest and beating of the editor-in-chief of '' The Reporter''. For almost two years following the 2005 elections, Ethio telecom, which is also the sole telephone provider in the country, blocked mobile phone text-messaging. The government accused the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, the largest electoral opposition at the time, of coordinating anti-government demonstrations using text messages. Ethio telecom resumed messaging service in September 2007."One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure"
p. 52. Human Rights Watch report, released 10 March 2010

See also

* Telecommunications in Ethiopia

References

External links

Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation website


GSM coverage

{{authority control

1952 establishments in Ethiopia
Government-owned companies of Ethiopia
Companies based in Addis Ababa
Telecommunications companies of Ethiopia