By Kaleyesus Bekele

March 28, 2006 (Addis Ababa ) – The Ethiopians Telecommunications Corporation (ETC)  on Thursday called on the private sector to participate in rendering telecom service to the public.

At a consultative meeting held on Thursday at the Sheraton Addis Tesfaye Birru, General Manager of ETC, said that the corporation wanted to work with the private sector. According to him though there were many opportunities in the telecom business which the private sector could utilize, local businesses' participation in the sector was minimal.

Tesfaye indicated that previously the Ethiopian Telecommunication Agency (ETA), the regulatory organ of the telecom sector, had permitted the private sector to provide only retail services. He said the agency began to issue licenses to private companies so as to enable them render value-added services. "We want to avoid the monopolistic thinking; we want to open the sector to private companies," he added.

Last year ETC launched the optical fiber infrastructure development project. The corporation has a plan to connect Ethiopia with the international undersea gateway. So far, the corporation has installed a 4000-km long fiber across the nation. It had planned to install a 10,000-km long fiber optic line that connects all the regional states and that links the country to the international undersea gate way via Djibouti and Port Sudan.

The Ethiopian government previously asked the government of Djibouti for a permission to install the fiber optics all the way to the red sea cost. However, the Djiboutian authorities reject Ethiopia's  proposal to undertake the work inside the country's territory on the ground that it was a matter of sovereignty. But the Ethiopian and Djibouti authorities later reached an understanding based on which ETC will lay the fiber optics line up to the Ethio-Djibouti border with the rest of the work to be executed by the government of Djibouti. Ethiopian officials have also reached an understanding with Sudanese authorities. The Ethiopian government is expected to sign agreements with both countries.

Meanwhile, Tesfaye said that the management of ETC had decided to reduce the price of mobile phones SIM cards. He disclosed that the price of a SIM card, which currently is 443 birr, will come down to about 300 birr. Tesfaye said the corporation will soon make the announcement adding the corporation will reduce telecom service tariff rates as the number of customers was growing substantially. The number of mobile phone subscribers has increased from 50,000 to 510,000 over a four-year period using a prepaid mobile card. He added the window period (the validity date) will be prolonged. The validity date of a 25 birr card, which presently is 15 days, will increased to 25 days. The corporation will make similar adjustment on the price of prepaid cards.

In a related news, ETC is to resume the mobile text message service (SMS). The corporation interrupted the service some months back. Tesfaye told members of the private sector and journalists that the management was anticipating that it would start the SMS service soon. "We are working on it. Hopefully, we will soon start rendering the service," he told the participants.