In March 2000, Eritrea became the
last country in Africa to establish local access to the Internet when the Eritrean PTO
built an international gateway in coordination with USAID’s Leland Project. Prior,
email access to the Internet was provided by “store-and-forward” email systems
connecting to the United States. TFanus and Ewan used to be the email service providers.
Since that time, four Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been licensed to:
- Eritrean Post and
Telecommunications Authority (the national telecom operator)
- Tfanus Enterprises
- EWAN Technical Solutions
- Computer Technology Services (CTS)
The costs of Internet access
stands at US$55 for setup costs, and an additional US$25-28 for account maintenance. The
government owned Telecommunications Services of Eritrea (TSE) is the only entity allowed
to provide international IP connectivity. ISPs will pay a monthly fee of US$ 2000.00 to
TSE for a bandwidth of 128K, which is considered to be reasonable by African standards.
The Communications Proclamation issued on March 2, 1998,
allows both domestic and foreign private companies to invest in value-added services,
which includes the Internet. According to the Director General of Eritrean Communications
Department, the present market size does not encourage the Eritrean Telecommunications
Service (ETS) to invest huge amounts of money to develop the Internet. Although a definite
market assessment has not been conducted, it is believed that there is a substantial
market for Internet services. Local private companies are now providing e-mail services to
over 500 subscribers. One of the e-mail service providers has so far expressed interest to
invest in Internet services. Source: USIS Economic and
Commercial Information in Eritrea.
A Plan of Action has been agreed
with US Leland Initiative on August, 1999 to installing a national Internet gateway at the
Telecommunications Service of Eritrea (TSE). Multiple private sector Internet Service
Providers would get affordable 64 Kbps leased -lines from the TSE. High-speed Internet
access would be extended to four secondary cities through TSE's digital microwave network.
Internet host sites: 8
(2000)
Internet subscribers
(1999):
- Total: 300
- Subscribers per 10,000
inhabitants: 0.84
Internet Users (1999):
- Total: 500
- Users per 10,000 inhabitants: 1.34
Internet use by categories:
- Commercial:
- Academic:
- Research:
- NGO/UN/International:
- Government:
- Others:
Internet bandwidth (Kbps):
128
