Ethio telecom: How long will service interruption prevail?

Ethio telecom, Ethiopian telecom service provider, in a press conference which was arranged to unwrap its biannual execution on Thursday had enclosed as it has obtained over seven billion birr from all forms of services it is rendering. According to Abdurahim Ahmed, Corporate Communication Manager of the company, the amount has stricken 91 per cent of the company's plan for the time period. Compared to last year's same period execution, this one oversteps by 12.4 per cent. Abdurahim also mentioned figure pertaining to the aggregate number of customers of the company which he said to have escalated as big as 27.14 million till end of last December. (See further, Addis Zemen Friday issue No. 157, 2006 E.C.)

Over the past years, Ethio telecom repeatedly announced that its services are marking a profound progress. In most cases, this service provider also lists challenges which are reducing quality service such as telecom infrastructure vandalism, skyscrapers that are blocking networks, and a now unprecedented problem has rolled in—i.e., power irregularities. Despite such mishaps, the revenues made year in, year out are on the rise.

Customers quite often are, however, left with discomfort when it comes to quality service provision. To prove this fact one needs not to make an in-depth research, it is easy to go to a nearby bank, for instance, most of the time bad network connections make it hard to carry out normal bank transactions. Though the number of mobile users is being rocketing, quality service is still a daily headache for most. It is clear that, revenues fetched from mobile service take the lion's share.

 During the reported period mentioned earlier for instance, 67 per cent of the revenue has been secured from mobile service. No confusion, this sum is collected at the expense of customers. In addition, Internet connection gives the hardest time to users. Imagine, the number of customers— be it domestic, enterprise or whatever—who could be disadvantaged due to such poor service provision. To make matters worse, recharging prepaid accounts has become too upsetting for one cannot do it easily. When one takes these matters into consideration, they may conclude as the company could have collected even more revenue, had quality service been in place. The land is fertile, what remains is to cultivate it in a better way possible.

Quality telecom service is one and great factor that promotes development of nations. Understanding this fact, the government of Ethiopia has put a direction in place on how the sector could be transformed during the GTP years. As it is stated in the GTP period, apart from making calls, the sector is conceived of fostering social service provisions and to be an instrument for implementation of development strategies.

Among the goals set on this document is, finalizing existing network infrastructure development and applications and making them functional to ensuring the expansion of competitive service in terms of price and quality, among other. In line with this, the company has already signed a 1.6 billion USD telecommunication expansion project in a multi vending approach with ZTE and Huawei, 50 per cent share for each. This expansion work is envisaged to uplift the network coverage from existing 64 per cent to 85 per cent and to increase number of mobile users by 39 million, inter alia.

The irregularities which disappoint customers on a daily basis would be overcome when this project see completion. But, that would not be enduring solution for quality service, rather ethio telecom is expected to work aggressively to improve the quality of its services with the infrastructure available. This could be in terms of investing on the capacity of its human capital and/or working hand in hand with all stakeholders. Awareness raising works on the public and working hand in hand with police force, for instance, can help the company fight individuals that perpetrate damages and robbery on cables, if at all this is a grand problem now.

 Moreover, most service interruptions source from uncoordinated works of municipal infrastructure providers such as water and sewerage, electricity and road construction. Therefore, the threesome along with ethio telecom should extend a kind of mechanism to do away with this mess. 

Published on The EThiopian Herald on 15, Feb.