Safaricom Ethiopia: Builds Infrastructure
Safaricom Ethiopia, the second operator in Ethiopia is still making plans for next year’s launch, most recently with news of the mobile number prefix it plans to employ.
Every-time a Telecom company grazes skin with Ethio telecom I get a smile on my face; it wasn’t too long ago that unlimited broadband (DSL/ADSL) wasn’t allowed for residential use, not long before that time 512kb at my previous employer cost ,6,000 birr/month and that was a lot of money 12years ago.
Safaricom Ethiopia Data Center
Ethio Telecom made a deal with Frances orange telecom where by Orange Telecom would manage Ethio telecom for 5 years in exchange for 40% of the profit and the first week 1mb/s being reduced to 1,500 birr a month made some of the old hardliners of the then ruling party TPLF blow some capillaries in the temple area.
Now Ethio telecom that has had a very very poor track record of managing it’s services mostly because of gross incompetence of the CEO’s and systematic looting by the kleptocratic regiem that oversaw it. The corporation often ran out of sim cards l, recharge cards, the network would serve double it’s limit before they would upgrade it and even then they chose cheap Chinese junk over the better Chinese equipment (Africa standard).
It’s sad to say that only the thought of fading into obscurity due to the impending entrance into market of a better service provider gets Ethio telecoms greed under control.
Safaricom has been setting up data centers throughout the country to handle traffic on the network and only this has made Ethio telecom realize they are gouging their clientele, 10mbps was close to 24,000birr some time back and has now been reduced to… Brace yourself 1,700birr… Finally a price we can afford. To be honest any bandwidth under 5mbps is not internet to me it’s just nothing, strange given my internet usage began on a 56kbps dial up modem.
I’m not switching to Safaricom I’ll stay with ethio telecom.
It wasn’t too long ago the current CEO was loosing it over the proposed sale of “Spectrum” it was a fun press release event to watch seeing the journalist and government officials squint at this word spectrum that they were hearing for the first time and hadnt the slightest idea what it meant or why this woman was so infuriated, it was that wat coupled with seeing the poor explanation of the so called print media try to explain technologies over the years that got me to launch this site.
Can I get some spectrum over here ? with a side of ketchup ?
So what is spectrum ? and why I not going to switch to Safaricom? Your smartphones may seem magical but it’s just microwaves and sectoral antennas. Mobile phones smarty-pants and dummies alike operate on different generations with different capabilities.
2G – GSM
3G – CDMA WCDMA 1x EVDO
4G – LTE
Each of these generations has something called Bands and each band has a frequency range, Just like radio stations, so only one radio station can broadcast on 104.7 And that’s EBC radio so if another person wants to open a radio station they need to get a different frequency. These frequencies are called spectrum in the telecommunications industry.
So ethio telecom was able to persuade the ministry of ICT that spectrum isn’t sold (the right decision) and that’s why I won’t bother with another sim card, if no spectrum is going to be sold that means that Safaricom will be broadcast on Ethio telecoms already existing cell towers under a different network name and with a different prefex.
Fun fact we already have multiple networks now every cell tower seems to be named differently here are the ones I remember:
Ethio telecom,
ETHIO-TELECOM(usually used during internet blackouts),
ethio.telecom(this too)
ETH-MTN
So Safaricoms network can’t be any better that Ethio telecoms that’s why I won’t bother they are in essences just a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) so the only use Safaricom has to me it’s already server and that’s price reduction.
Safaricom Ethiopia plans to use the same 07 mobile number prefix it deploys in Kenya when it launches commercial operations next March.
According to the Business Daily website this is the second mobile network prefix allocated in Ethiopia. State-owned operator Ethio Telecom uses the 09 prefix.
But all in all business in Ethiopia is on the up & up since they got here even Advertising and communications companies are making money here is tweet from Safaricom with its first production ad for Ethipopia i like the concept but you will only understand the lemon and Timket if you are from Ethiopia or atleast know about the UNESCO Registered Holiday