12 May 2008
Addis Ababa — Ethiopia is the clear laggard in terms of moving ahead with the highly advancing information technology by retaining a monopoly both on fixed-line and mobile telephone services, according to the GSMA, which described the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) as a "Monopolistic Telecom Company." "I know that our members would be ready to invest in Ethiopia tomorrow if they got a licence," Gabriel Solomon, a senior vice-president for public policy at the GSMA told Reuters on Tuesday.
The vice-president was speaking on the sidelines of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Telecom Africa conference.
The official said Ethiopia was way back from success stories in other countries in East Africa where he said the competition were heating up.
"If you look at Kenya for example, this time last year there were two operators, today there are four...Uganda now has six licenses. So you have to ask yourself are these sustainable, will some of these guys drop out, will it lead to consolidation?" Solomon said.
Tom Phillips, the GSMA's chief government and regulatory affairs officer on his part said key to growth on the continent has been increased competition, going from a monopoly to a duopoly, and even more operators battling for market share.
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa which still maintains a monopoly for both mobile and fixed voice, according to the GSMA.
ETC has, only last year begun outsourcing the sale of prepaid mobile SIM card.
ETC claims that value added service such as information roaming short massage, voice mail, Call baring and waiting general pocket radio and calling identification have been provided.
Major cities and towns along highways of mobile networks and tourist sites get connected.
Future strategic plan of ETC indicates that by the year 2010, one person among ten people in Ethiopia will be expected to get access to telephone services thereby making the country to leap in to information age in the shortest possible time.
Last month ETC said it was to increase mobile telephone service to about 5.6 million lines under the second phase of an expansion project which covers the demand in 22 high ways and 766 towns including Addis in three months time.
"The second phase of the project raises the total network capacity to 5.6 million so that it will be possible to continue the distribution," Public Relations Head Abdurahim told The Daily Monitor in an interview.
The current total connected subscribers of mobile telephone are 1.8 million and this excelled the fixed lines by 400,000 in 113 year's history of telecom service in Ethiopian, showing an ever increasing number of mobile users, the greatest in the whole of Africa, the corporation claims.
Industry organisation GSMA said African mobile operators added 70-million users in the past year, a growth rate of 33 percent, and expanded cell phone coverage by an area the size of France.
Africa now has 282-million mobile phone users out of a population of around 960-million, but more than 300-million people living in rural areas still have no cell phone coverage, according to the Association.
Around 66 percent of the population is reached by a mobile phone signal, up from 62 percent in 2007.
Some African countries, such as Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, already have coverage well above 90 percent, the GSMA said.
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The Ethiopian Telphone Corporation is one major obstacle for the economic develpoment of the Nation. It is full of corrupt individuals, some of whom are under criminal investigation for corruption. It is unimaginable for Ethiopia to expect efficient delivery of service from a State monopoly. Ethiopia will have to privatize this Elephant. If the Govt fears foreign ownership, it has to take a step by step measure. One way to that is to partially privatize the functions of this agency. it can sell stock to the masses and get billions of birr for the cash strapped Treasury. This will allow average Ethiopians to have a stake in this booming enterprise. Not only will they see their investments ( shares) grow in value but also get dividends from such lucrative endeavour. Publicly accounatble transaprent corporation will create enormous wealth for the Masses while expanding at a rapid pace to satisfy the ever growing demand in such a vital sector of the economy. It is impossible to avoid corruption in such a vast enterpise. There just are too many holes in the pipeline, be it in procurment or otherwise.
Speaking about selling shares to the public, the Government has to follow suit in selling stock of other numerous unprofitable state owned corporations. There is now way to police those in charge of dispensing billions of birr worth of enterpise while getting meager( proportionally speaking) compensation. The sale of stocks of these corporations to the public will lay a solid foundation for a stock exchange. If The Nation is ready for a Commodity Exchange which will only increase speculative endeavours, I think it should lay the corner stone for a stock exchange. The Phone Company will have to be the first on the chopping list and to be traded on the stock exchange. No Nation has attained sustainable economic growth without a regulated, transparent stock exchange.