Ethiopia to get LTE

Ethiopia’s monopoly operator Ethio Telecom has announced plans to deploy LTE services in the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.The operator recently launched a program of 26 projects aimed at improving service provision, customer handling and communication, and network expansion. Its network expansion plan includes an internet broadband strategy which is expected to include introduction of LTE services in Addis Ababa, as well as HSPA+ in all major cities and universal internet access by 2015.

“We have also developed new products and services to offer to enterprise customers such as business mobile, machine to machine business solution and 3G VPN, and upcoming products such as hybrid business mobile, GPRS and prepaid roaming services,” said Bruno Duthoit, CEO at Ethio Telecom. “However we believe that these efforts are not quite enough and we have a long way to go to reach the level of customer satisfaction we aim to.”

He added that the plans will help the operator to speedily tackle issues such as network congestion, lack of coverage, lack of bandwidth availability. “Ethio Telecom is currently finalising negotiation with vendors for expansion of telecommunications infrastructures and improve quality of services,” Duthoit added.