The Ethiopian Telecomm- unications Corporation (ETC) signed a contract
agreement on August 20, 2004 with Nokia Company to undertake 350,000 line
capacity mobile expansion project in line with the designed plan for the 1997
Ethiopian fiscal year.
According to the contract agreement, this project which costs 39,171,689 Euro,
will be completed within nine months. From this service expansion project,
200,000 subscribers in Addis Ababa and 150,000 subscribers found in different
regions of the country, will benefit
Through the same project those who are found across the main roads connecting
Ethiopia to neighboring countries notably Addis Ababa to Moyle, Addis Ababa to
Kurmuk, Addis Ababa to Metama, Addis Ababa to Djibouti and Addis Ababa to
ZalaAnbessa, will get access to the mobile services.
This project enables 104 regional towns nationwide to get access to mobile
services through five mobile exchanges established at Dessie, Shashamane,
Nekemte, Jimma and Gonder as well as 350 new mobile base stations.
According to the contract agreement, the mobile service expansion project will
be finalized at the end of December 1997 Ethiopian fiscal year (E.F.Y), while
the project intended to supply services for 104 regional towns, will be
completed at the end of May 1997 E.F.Y.
It is to be noted that at present ETC provides 180,000 customers with mobile
services in Addis Ababa and 12 major regional urban centers, and upon the
completion of this new project the total amount of mobile telephone subscribers
in the country will reach around 600,000.
