2. Communication technology status

UNECA headquarters only, not from

phone shops in the streets and the

employees' homes. To have the

quite visible Internet cafes seem to

privilege of an independent

be tolerated by the authorities,

connection, UNECA is paying the

although the operation of cybercafes

Government a `compensation' or

is officially discouraged by ETC, which

`bypass' fee. ETC is also concerned

is concerned about the possible use

that UNECA allows journalists,

of voice over IP (VoIP) and the

students or other visitors to connect

consequent decrease of international

to the Internet from its facilities. The

traffic revenues.

same is true for the College of Civil

Servants: the service is available only

Given the widespread practice of

inside the College, and is not made

reselling communications services,

available for students externally, even

ETA is currently planning to allow

though many resources of the College

private entities to resell telephone

could be accessed directly by those

services subject to the granting of a

who could not afford an Internet

licence. ETA considers that in this way

account. From home, students

it could have control over resale, which

currently have to obtain a normal

is currently not supervised by the

Internet subscription with ETC.

public authority. It is interesting to

note that this process does not have

The environment for the reselling of

the purpose of liberalizing the service

services is more complex, the many

and fostering competition but aims to

Box 1: Phone shops: illegal and expensive

Despite concerns

in rural and remote

that the reselling of

areas, to cover

phone services

An ETC public phone area

84 per cent of the

could be detrimental

population. The

to customers by

objective of this

being too expensive

development project

or without guaran 

is to have at least

tee of quality or

one public phone for

pricing, telephone

each farmer

shops are widely

association, which is

present in Ethiopia.

the smallest cell of

The surprise is that

the Ethiopian

the large number of

society.

6

 However

shops in the market

these targets have

(often very close to

not yet been agreed

one another) does

upon by the ETC,

not seem to stimulate competition: all of them sell

which did not sign the licence, therefore they will

the service at the same price, at Birr 0.75 minute

not become effective until the entry into force of

(0.09 US cents) (for local calls), about three times

the licence.

more expensive than the service provided by ETC's

public payphones.

The same dynamics are behind the spread of

cybercafes and public Internet access points: the cost

Explanations include the fact that telephone lines

of computer equipment (there are only an estimated

are difficult to obtain, that they are often too

60'000 PCs in the country) and Internet connection

expensive for the average Ethiopian, and that the

are too high for individuals, therefore many people

number of public phones is quite low: there are

use public points of access. ETC is planning to establish

only about 1'500 public phones in the country and

Internet centres around Ethiopia (one pilot Internet

prepaid cards have not been around long, so

centre has been created in ETC headquarters in Addis

communications had to be paid for with coins. ETC's

Abeba, with two computers connected to the Internet

provisional licence roll out targets for the financial

and a fax machine), however there is evidence that

year 2001/2002, establishes that the number of

this task is too burdensome for the company, which

public phones should grow to 6'500 in the next five

in the last two years has not been able to offer an

years, and that 22'000 call offices are to be set up

adequate service to the population.

Source: ITU case study research.

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