Safaricom and Vodacom have joined forces to bid for the Ethiopia Telecom (Ethio Telecom) license that will open this month. The bid is expected to cost over $1 billion.
Telecommunication in Ethiopia is solely monopolized and provided by Ethio Telecom formerly dubbed Ethiopia Telecommunication. The monopoly, however, hasn’t done the telecom sector much good as the 108 million Ethiopians find it hard to make use of the telecom services.
Issues bothering on poor national network coverage, inadequate phone lines, network congestion amidst other challenges face telecom users in the country. This spurred the move to disenfranchise the telecommunication sector and invite other companies to bid for telecommunication licenses in the country.
See Also: Ethiopia Plans to Award Telecommunication Licenses to Operators
The Acting CEO Safaricom, Michael Joseph stated that the company had to join forces with Vodacom to vie for one of the licenses available because of the huge amount involved in acquiring the license.
Other telecom companies like Orange and MTN Group have also shown interest in expanding to Ethiopia. They will be vying for the permit with Vodacom Safaricom. The entrance of other telecom companies into the Ethiopian market will bring a new dawn to the telecommunication sector and open up Ethio Telecom to competition and privatization.
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