 MAKING A BALANCED DEVELOPMENT - TELECOMMUNICATIONS |
The introduction of the telecom and postal services in Ethiopia dates back to 1894 and the first postage stamps were issued at that time.
The Ministry of Posts, Telegraph and Telephone was established in 1907 and in 1908 Ethiopia became member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) enabling her stamps to cross the national border.
Although telecommunications stayed at a rudimentary stage of development under different organizational structures until the 1950s, Ethiopia also became member of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 1932.
The former Imperial Board of Telecommunications, currently called the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), was formed by proclamation No. 131, of 1952. It is fully owned by the government as a body politic and corporate in name and deed, separate and independent from the Ministry of Posts, Telegraph and Telephone to provide and operate public domestic and international telecommunications network and to regulate the management of radio frequency spectrum in the country.
Lack of appropriate policy, limitation of resources in general and foreign currency in particular has hampered the expansion of telecom.
The country's telecom penetration is one of the least in the world with just 3 telephones per 1000. Furthermore, the distribution is not fair. The low penetration and skewed distribution are the major characteristics explaining the telecom network of the country.
The current government, by noticing the problem, has given special emphasis to balance the distribution of telecom network.
Mr. Kebede Kiros, Acting Managing Director of Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, says "The overall policy of the country is to give emphasis for the rural areas, and this has many advantages. During the past periods, the rural areas were totally forgotten. They were not given the opportunity to modern technology. In our development program, we will try to reach the most remote areas, to give them service, and to ensure that people should not travel anymore a long distance to get any telephone service.
| Our program main objective is not only to focus on rural areas but also to balance the difference between big cities and rural areas."
Since the issuance of the Ethiopian Investment Code in May 1992, the present government made two amendments on it in order to make it more comprehensive, transparent and attractive for both domestic and foreign investors.
The recent revision of the Code has opened up telecommunications services, defense industries and hydropower generation to private investment, particularly to foreign investment. Mr. Kebede says, "We are looking for a strategic partner, so that there will be a private involvement in our sector."
To meet present and future service demands both at national and international levels in an optimal way technically, economically and operationally, though not fully successful, the Corporation has started to redress the service imbalance between rural and urban areas. It is also devoted to make this service responsive to national socio-economic development objectives and it is also trying to modernize and expand service networks.
Since the Internet coverage is too small in relative to its demand importance the Corporation is willing to enlarge the service coverage. Mr. Kebede heralds, "Considering the importance of Internet, we have also a plan to launch another project with the assistance of UNDP. The capacity of this new project will be for about 17,000 subscribers, and will be in business in 1999."
In the last three years, many promises of the Corporation has failed in installing cellular phone. Very recently the Corporation has started to give mobile telephone service. An agreement which was signed between Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation and Ericsson (Sweden's telecom group) to install mobile phones came into reality after long waiting. Ericsson has been the major supplier of Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation over the past 100 years.
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