Telecom played vital role for Ethiopia’s overall development: Ethio Telecom

Addis Ababa, May 21 (WIC) – The telecommunication sector has played a vital role in the political, economic and social achievements of the country over the past two decades, Ethio Telecom (ET) said. 
External Communications Manager at ET, Abdurahim Ahmed said that due to the special attention accorded to the sector by the government, the telecom service has expanded to a wide range of services and customers. 
In the past two decades the telecom sector has registered a steady growth in terms of the service provided, network capacity and number of customers, the external communications manager said.
 
In 1991 fixed line subscribers stood at 6,700. At the moment, it stands just below the million mark.
 
“Since the introduction of the mobile phone service, the growth of the fixed line subscribers is limited,” Abdurahim told WIC in an exclusive interview. “In the next five years, we plan to pass the million mark”.
 
Internet and Mobile phone services were introduced to Ethiopia in 1997 and 1999, respectively. At the time, the number of internet subscribers was 1,042 while mobile phone service, which originally had a network capacity to accommodate 36,000 dial-up subscribers, registered 6,700 customers.
 
“Now, mobile phone subscribers has reached 9.5 million and the network capacity stands at 20 million subscribers,” Abdurahim said. “By the end of the previous budget year, internet subscribers have reached 68,000”.
 
The telecom sector had also launched the School-net, Wereda-net, and Agri-net projects with a view to assisting education, agriculture and good governance sectors, respectively.
 
According to Abdurahim, 684 senior secondary schools under the School-net project, 631 Weredas under the Wereda-net project and 49 agricultural institutes under the Agri-net project are connected with V-Sat technology.
 
The external communication manager said that under the rural connectivity project, all weredas are now connected with digital telephone services.
 
He said that a project which was launched to connect all Kebeles through wireless technology will be completed by the end of this fiscal year.
 
“We have, so far, connected more than 11,000 Kebeles with this technology,” Abdurahim told WIC.