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Ethiopia: No new mobile operator until 2010 Print E-mail
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Ethiopia will not issue a second mobile license until 2010. A news operator would be licensed after a US$ 1.5 billion infrastructure expansion is complete, the minister for communications said.

The country recently commenced work to build expand its fibre optic network and erect additional base stations to extend mobile coverage to 85% of the country’s population.

"Because of the universal access issue, sometimes operators might not be interested in the remote areas where financially it might not be viable, so we want to address this issue first and after that we can talk about this public-private issue," Juneydi Sado, minister of transport and communication said.

The network expansion project will increase the size of the fibre optic network to 14,000 km from 4,000 km. The plan also includes the installation of 65,000 public phones throughout the country. The Ethiopia Telecommunications Corporation, a state-owned monopoly, is also required to increase its fixed and mobile subscriber base to over 10 million by 2010, up from 3.6 million today.

"We're investing US$ 1.5 billion and this is going to be the biggest investment an African government has undertaken in the telecoms sector. Once all this is in place, then prices will dramatically reduce," Sado added.

Source: Reuters - WDR/Intelecon Regulatory News.