The Ethiopian Telecommunications: Past, Present and Future

by   Dawit Bekele

1st ESS Conference on Ethiopian Telecommunications in the Information Age, Washington, DC, July 2nd, 1996

This article presents an overview of the Ethiopian Telecommunication, by examining past achievements, present situation of the infrastructure and future plans.

Introduction

The Ethiopian telecommunication started with a humble beginning more than a hundred years ago by establishing a telephone link between the capital city and some major provincial cities. Today, telecommunication has extended to the interior of the country and uses technologies such as micro-wave, satellite and even fibber optics. However the infrastructure is far beyond what is needed to satisfy the ever growing demand and to be in phase with the modern world. To overcome these problems, Ethiopia needs to re-examine its policies and organizations related to the telecommunication.

In today's world, the telecommunication infrastructure of a country is one of the most important factors that can affect greatly the development of that country. It is therefore important to evaluate a country's national telecommunication infrastructure prior to embarking on a major national development program. Ethiopia has planned important economical development programs for the years to come and it desperately needs to carry out such programs to fulfill even the basic necessities of its people. This article envisages to evaluate the readiness of the national telecommunication infrastructure for such a challenge, by studying past achievements and evaluating the current telecommunication infrastructure.

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The Past

The history of telecommunication in Ethiopia goes back more than one hundred years with the establishment of the first long distance telephone line, between Addis Ababa and Harar, in 1894 [ETA 94b]. Since then, telecommunication in Ethiopia has gone a great length. In 1994, there were more than 140 thousands subscribers, 36 automatic and 375 manual exchanges in the country. Today, modern telecommunication technologies such as satellite, microwave and fibber optics connection are used. However, demand has grown even faster so much that, today, the number of applicants for new lines on the waiting list exceeds the total number of subscribers in the country.

This section tries to make an overview of the history of telecommunication in Ethiopia in general and the Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority in particular.

The beginning

Like many modern technologies, telecommunication technology was brought to Ethiopia during the reign of Atse Minilik II. The first long distance link was made between Addis Ababa and Harar. This project was assigned to the Swiss Engineer Alfred Ilg and his associate, Michel Chefneux in 1894. At its inauguration in 1997, this telephone line connected, in addition to Addis Ababa and Harar, Gara Muleta, Kulubi, Kuni, Lgdar din, Fantale, Tchoba and Baltchi.

After the Adwa war resulting in Ethiopian victory, an agreement was signed between the Ethiopian government and its Italian counterpart to establish 880 km telephone line between the Ethiopian capital and Asmara. The project started in 1902 and was completed in 1905. The line connected, in addition to Addis Ababa and Asmara, Ankober, Woreilu, Dessie, Marto, Korem, Mekele, Adwa and Adikuala.

Between 1905 and 1913 connections were established between Addis Ababa and Gondar, southern and western Ethiopia (Gambella, Nekemte, Sidamo, etc.). Telegraph lines was built to link Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Djibouti parallel with the construction of the railroad. Addis Ababa, right from the beginning, was the most important center for urban connections. In 1914, there were 100 subscribers and 200 in 1932. The introduction of radio-telephone communication in 1933 greatly improved national and international connections on the eve of the invasion of the country by the fascist Italy in 1935. At that time, 170 towns were connected and International links were established with Cairo, Djibouti and Aden.

As for the administration, the embryo of network that existed from 1897 to 1907 was managed by one of its founders, Michel Chefneux. However, in January 1907 the emperor expressed the necessity that such a vital network for the country should be administered by an Ethiopian and appointed Lij Beyene Yimar as the administrator.

During all this period, Ethiopia, realizing the importance of membership in international organizations concerned with telecommunications joined the International postal, telegraph and telephone service in 1909. It also became member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 1932.

The Italian Invasion

During the Italian invasion of 1935-1941, the country's telecommunication infrastructure suffered a great set-back. It was destroyed during the war which led to the occupation of the country and later on by the resistance attacks and finally by the retreating Italian army.

One of the rare improvements added during the Italian occupation was the establishment of the first automatic telephone exchange in Addis Ababa. This facility miraculously escaped the fascist destruction during retreat and continued serving the capital after the war. The exchange could handle as much as 1,500 subscribers. During the same period, Asmara also acquired an automatic telephone exchange handling 1,200 users.

The post war period & the Establishment of the Imperial Board of Telecommunications of Ethiopia

After the war, Ethiopia started restoration of its telephone and telegraphic infrastructure, for both national and international communications. New links were soon established with Sana'a, Beirut and America. However these national efforts were not sufficient and, at the end of the second world war, Ethiopia applied for assistance from the newly created World Bank for the rehabilitation and improvement of its telecommunication infrastructure. To be eligible for assistance however establishing a legal institution wholly responsible for telecommunication services was a precondition.

To satisfy this requirement, the Imperial board of Telecommunications in Ethiopia has been created by proclamation in the Negarit Gazeta on October 15, 1952 [Negarit 52]. The Board was established with the following aims :

• undertake all activities in the field of telecommunications in the country, except for similar military activities.
• establish repair and safeguard telecommunication facilities throughout the country.
• represent the Ethiopian government at any meeting in the world conducted to discuss maters related to telecommunications.
• distribute and control the radio frequencies used in Ethiopia.
• honour all rules and regulations regarding international agreements to which the country is party and see to it that they are respected fully.

The institution was to be motivated by profit for covering its expenses. It was created with an initial capital of 6.7 million Birr, 3 million of which was funded from domestic sources and 3.7 million was obtained from the World Bank assistance.

The Imperial Board of Telecommunications in Ethiopia which become the Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority in 1981 after several change of names, has undertaken a number of development projects which can be summarized by the six development programmes. The first development programme of the board took place from 1953 to 1963. Its main attention was the rehabilitation of the communication service destroyed during the invasion of the country by Fascist Italy. The main achievement of this programme include the establishment of manual exchanges in 12 towns and the expansion of the Addis Ababa automatic telephone exchange.

The second (1962-1964) and third (1965-1967) development programmes expanded existing automatic exchanges in Addis Ababa, Debre Zeit and Asmara. New exchanges were installed in Keren, Massawa and Dessie. 83 other towns were also provided with manual exchange during the third development programme. Telex services started in Addis Ababa and some rural areas. Once again, these programmes were financed partially by the World Bank, the rest being covered from local sources.

The Fourth Development programme (1968-1973) aimed mainly at improving the quality of telecommunication equipment. At the same time, more automatic (Nazareth, Jimma, Harar and Assab) and manual (250) exchanges were installed.

Looking at the growth of telecommunication from the usage point of view, it is interesting to note that, during the four development programmes (1953 to 1973), the number of urban calls increased 10 times while inter-urban calls grew almost 20 times and the international calls showed an increase of 12 percent annually from 1961 to 1973.

As for the network, the urban line grew from 20,000 to 232,430 km. In contrast the progress made in the inter-urban line over the same period was much less impressive as radio communications started to be used more intensively for telegraph and telephone services. The Beseka Radio reception service, which was latter transferred to Akaki before it was finally moved to its present site at Sululta, was set up for this purpose.

Even though telegraph services existed beginning from the early days of the history of telecommunication in Ethiopia, their domestic use was limited as Latin alphabet had to be used to send the messages until 1963, when Ato Tereffe Raswork devised an Amharic teletype machine that enabled to transmit the messages in the national script.

The fifth and sixth development programmes were executed from 1975 to 1983 and from 1984 to 1994 respectively. The fifth programme was marked by the installation of an earth satellite station and the establishment of microwave facilities between several cities of the country. The HF radio communication which served for international communication was replaced by a "standard A" satellite earth station in Sululta with 300-Channel semi-automatic telephone exchange, in 1979. This facility greatly improved the quality of telephone, telex, telegram and data receiving services. It has also enabled, for the first time, the reception of television programs from abroad. Many of us remember the excitement of the television viewers when the 1980 Moscow Olympics was transmitted direct, showing the victory of the famous Ethiopian runner, Miruts Yifter. As for the quality of the national connections, it is no longer necessary to yell to be heard by the person on the other end of the line, as the quality of the line improved on most of the main lines.

The sixth development programme was the most important of all programmes in terms of the resources allocated. Some 316 million Birr was allocated for this programme while only 214.75 million Birr were allocated for the total of the previous plans. The aim of this programme was the expansion and modernization of the network. Accordingly, a second international Satellite earth station was erected at Sululta. Domestic Satellite earth stations were also established at Sululta, Asmara, Mekele, Gode and Humera. However, this period is also the period during which the number of customers waiting for telephone lines increased dramatically showing a great gap between supply and demand.

A seventh development programme has been initiated in 1994 and is due for completion in 5 years. It's main objective is developing new rural connections and improving the existing infrastructure so that the supply meets the ever growing demand. It should also introduce the modern telecommunication services that are necessary for the development of the national economy.

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The present

Today, the telecommunication network in Ethiopia uses various technologies to connect towns and cities all over the country and to the whole world. Domestic connections use open wire systems, Relief and Rehabilitation Commission's (RRC) rural radio Call, multi-access and medium capacity VHF/UHF, Microwave and DOMSAT. For international telecommunication traffic, INTELSAT standard "A" earth stations for most countries and the PANAFTEL microwave system for south-eastern Africa are used [ETA 95a].

Domestic inter-urban network

The backbone of the domestic network for inter-urban connections are the analogue microwave lines which accesses almost all the regions of the country except for some remote areas which are accessible only through rural calls made available mainly by the former RRC, today renamed as Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC). The microwave lines, although of high quality compared to the previous technologies, are becoming outdated. and the ETA is obliged to replace them by more modern digital ones. The first beneficiary of this improvement is the Addis Ababa Dire Dawa Harar line.

Recently, some DOMSAT satellite earth stations have been installed in the country. In 1994, there were 4 such stations in Addis Ababa, Humera, Mekele and Gode while three other stations in Maji, Omo and Kebridehar are planned to be installed in the near future [ETA 94a].

The national network is also used for the broadcast of television throughout the country. In 1994, 22 towns had access to television programmes through the microwave network, DOMSAT or by rebroadcast [ETA 94a].

Failures on the domestic link occasionally occurs and some lines are unavailable from time to time due to these failures. However, the duration of the interruptions are generally short. According to the ETA's monthly availability statistics [ETA 96] from January to April 1996, the great majority of the terrestrial links were available 100% of the time. Some links had failures, but they still recorded availability rates greater than 98%. Terrestrial links to neighboring countries have similar availability rates. The main cause of failure is attributed to electrical power interruption.

International connections

The Sululta earth station is used to access :

• Western Europe and America using INTELSAT Atlantic Ocean region satellite
• Europe, Asia and the Far East using the INTELSAT Indian Ocean region satellite
• The Middle East, Far-East and Western Europe using the SEA-WE-ME cable.

Some African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Djibouti) are accessed through the PANAFTEL microwave network. Eritrea is accessed by both microwave and satellite connections.

In June 1994, there were around 345 satellite connections to 23 countries from the five continents. The most important destinations were USA (88 connections), Eritrea (54) and Italy (27).

Urban connections

In 1995, there were 40 stations benefiting from automatic exchanges, 113 stations benefiting from semi-automatic exchanges and 290 benefiting from manual exchanges. The capacity of the automatic exchanges was 150,556, that of the semi-automatic exchanges was 14,638 and that of the manual exchanges was 13,900.

Addis Ababa is by far the most important center for the urban network. 104,108 of the automatic exchange capacity is concentrated in the capital city. Its seven stations are inter-connected using digital microwave links and fibber optics (for the Arada - Filoha connection). The quality of inter-station connections is therefore very good and suitable for data transmission. The weak points are the lines from the stations to the users end. The signal deterioration rate on these lines are estimated to be 1 dB for short distances. The average for the whole network is about 1.5 dB.

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Telecommunications Services

Existing services

The ETA currently provides telephone, telex and telefax services. In June 1995, there were 142,452 telephone subscribers in the country. But, demand for new lines has increased dramatically. For the last four years demand increased at a rate of 13.6% annually, while the number of new subscribers increased only by 3.9% per year during the same period.

Telex service has been used by the business community for decades. But, its use has somewhat declined for the last four years due to the increasing use of telefax which has shown a significant growth these last years (about 13 % annually). Even though most of the telefax subscriptions are private, recently more and more service facsimiles and public fax booths were provided throughout the country, thus widening the user base of telefax.

Traffic

International, inter-urban and urban traffic has shown continuous growth with an exception for last year (1995) which showed a slight decrease. Europe is the main destination for international calls (47.1% in 1995 while Asia (17.01%) and America (12.51%) stand second and third respectively. Even though links with neighboring African countries was improved the traffic is still not comparable with European countries.

While the number of international calls grew at an average of 31% annually from 1982 to 1994 the duration of. the calls increased only at an average of 23% annually during the same period which indicates that each call tends to be shorter. The tariff increase of 1994 (more than 100% for international calls) has made of course an important impact on the traffic. Due to this major tariff increase, the number of calls and the total duration of the calls decreased for the first time by 0.5% and 8.5% respectively.

The number of inter-urban telephone calls decreased continuously from 1988 to 1992 due to the prevailing instability for much of that period. However the trend has reversed after 1993 causing the traffic to reach its 1988 level by 1995.

The number of urban telephone calls increased slightly over the last years. From 1995 to 1996, the number of calls in cities having automatic exchanges grew by 3%. Evidently, this growth is mainly due to the new lines since the number of metered calls per line actually decreased during the same period.

The number of international telegraph calls is almost invariably decreasing since 1982. During these years, the traffic of the inland calls has shown several variations probably due to the instability of the political atmosphere.

Telex, both national and international destination, has been continuously declining for the last decade due to the widespread use and the replacement effect by telefax and electronic data transmission.

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Organization

The ETA remains a governmental organization continuing to play the same role that it has been given at its inception in 1952. For instance, it still retains the regulatory as well as the service providing missions.

The present government, like all the previous ones, has indicated no intention to privatize the ETA, in spite of the continued pressure coming from the world financial organizations, in particular the World Bank. Expressing the government's stand on the matter, Dr. Abdul Mejid Hussien, currently Minister of transport and telecommunications, said in a television interview last April, that the ETA will not be privatized during the on going five years plan.

According to the minister, one of the main reasons is that private telecommunication agencies are likely to concentrate on areas already served and will not participate in distributing telephone services to more rural areas. Dr. Abdul Mejid also pointed out that privatization may likely create a private company monopoly, which is even less desirable than government monopoly. However, even though the minister excluded the formation of private telecommunication agencies in the near future, he did not exclude private companies participating with the ETA in its effort to improve the telecommunication infrastructure.

In general, the government's stand on privatization is contrary to the views of many experts particularly the World Bank, which affirm that the current problems of telecommunication in Africa as a whole cannot be resolved without the active participation of the private sector. For example, the ECA's project [ECA 95a] which analyzed African telecommunications, indicated that there is an anomaly in the field of telecommunication in Africa.

On one hand, there are millions of African consumers of telecommunication waiting for services that they don't find. On the other, there are several investors ready to invest billions of dollars in the telecommunications services. However, government rules prohibit the consumers and the producers to meet. According to this project, Africa's telecommunications problem will not be resolved unless this anomaly is corrected, in other words private telecommunication services are accepted by the governments.

The other problem that is often cited regarding the organization of the ETA is that it is in fact performing two conflicting tasks as a regulatory body and as a service provider, a situation which no doubt further aggravates the inherent problems of the monopoly. The past has shown that the regulations issued and enforced by the ETA are more inclined to protect the business interests of the ETA than to control the quality of the equipment and services (example : restrictions on telephone apparatus and modems).

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The Future

The world is now living in the wake of a new revolution : the information revolution. Already, information is gaining more and more importance in our day to day personal life and on the socio-economical and political life of our countries. There is no sector of the economy that does not need up-to-date information. For example, recently, some Ethiopian coffee exporters went bankrupt as they bought coffee from the peasants at a high price relying on the international price at that time, and the selling price suddenly dropped just before they could sell their coffee. With adequate and timely information that would enable them to foresee the evolution of the market, these businessmen could have avoided the catastrophe. This example shows that information is becoming an important commodity, even in developing countries such as ours, since our economy is inevitably part of the world economy. Developing countries should therefore re-examine their national policies which often seems to regard information as a luxury on which only rich countries should invest.

It is now becoming increasingly evident that no country can afford to be left aside by the information revolution. Very soon, one will not be able to sell, to buy, to communicate, to learn, to make research etc. unless she or he is part of the new information society. And obviously, one can not be part of that society without the necessary Information Infrastructure.

It is therefore out of necessity, not luxury, that the Ethiopian National Information Infrastructure should be strengthened and become an active component of the Global Information Infrastructure. The telecommunication infrastructure being an important component of the National Information Infrastructure should be ready to handle the following tasks :

• carry out more development plans with the aim to provide a much better telephone penetration
• improve the quality of existing connections (better technology, higher efficiency, higher data transmission rate, less error rate, etc.)
• issue better regulations (compatible with modern technological advancement)

ETA's development programme

The seventh development programme of the ETA aims at increasing the capacity of the automatic exchanges by 160% during the five year programme. The other exchanges (manual and semi-automatic) should also increase, at a somewhat lower rate. Even though this will no doubt help some of the hundreds of thousands of customers on the waiting list, it is unlikely that supply meets demand within a short span of time.

According to the programme, most of the existing manual exchanges will be changed to automatic exchanges, the analogue lines will be replaced by digital ones. These endeavors will probably improve the quality as well as the transmission rates of the lines.

There are also some plans to improve the services given for data communication. In this respect, the ETA has declared that, in less than three months, it shall commence providing Internet service.

Adequacy of the plans

As the international trend indicates, in the future, the telecommunication infrastructure will be used more and more for data and image transmission. However, it is evident that the current infrastructure is not adequate for these type of communication since better quality and higher capacity links are required. In view of this fact, the ETA should therefore provide more support for data and image transmission than it does now.

However, this doesn't mean that it should engage in the provision of services that are beyond its competence. For example, it is questionable that the ETA is the best choice to be the National Internet Provider. In fact, the announcement of this news came as a surprise as no other African telecommunication agency has ventured to take up such responsibility. It is in fact considered that, since Internet is a value added telecommunication service, that it is best left to other institutions (universities, private agencies, etc.) [BITE 95]. For the moment one can only say that the future will tell us if Ethiopia's unique choice is indeed reasonable.

It is the opinion of the author that the ETA should rather concentrate on providing better network level services for data communication. For instance, the ETA does not provide X25 service, while many African telecommunication companies made available to their user X25 packet switching service some years back [Fianyo 94], [Remy 94]. The ETA had prepared the technical prerequisite to support this service and, as recently as September 1995, it was saying that what was left was the determination of tariff before this service starts [Asfaw 95].

However, in 1996 the Authority preferred to abandon the X25 for a "better technology", ATM [Furzey 96]. This decision has created some polemics among outside observers for two reasons :

• first, ATM is a very new and expensive technology and for this reason alone will not probably be on the Ethiopian network within a reasonable length of time.
• second, X25 is far from being completely outdated and its introduction could have adequately served the immediate need of data communication of the country [ECA 95b].

Regulations

Little is said about regulatory changes in the seventh development programme of the ETA [ETA 94b]. However, it is high time that old regulations, that inhibit the development of modern telecommunication, are changed. For example, hundreds of people are considered as breaking the low every day as they are using their telephone line to access their e-mail provider or to send a fax. The existing regulation prohibits the telephone subscriber to use his/her telephone line for other purpose than voice transmission. This regulation, in spite of the fact that it is not applied strictly by the ETA, does not encourage the investment on modern data communication services by private investors (BBS for example).

The regulations should therefore be rewritten with an aim to safeguard the quality of the telecommunication infrastructure and protect the interest of users and not to guaranty the monopoly rights of the state owned telecommunication agency. To summarize some of the improvements that should be made are :

• the import of telecommunications equipment should not be discouraged by these rules as long as the equipment meet the quality standards.
• the use of telephone lines should not be limited to voice.

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Conclusion

The history of the Ethiopian telecommunication shows that it requires enormous resources and strong determination to build and operate an efficient and modern telecommunication infrastructure. The task is further complicated from day to day as demand increases continuously and new services are expected by the ever increasing number of users.

However, it is both an obligation and a challenge for Ethiopia to follow the evolution in the technology and respond to the needs of its business community and the population at large and insure that it is not left out of another major world revolution -the information revolution!

References

1. [Asfaw 95] Asfaw Haile Mariam and Zerfu Dimd, April. 95. How can Telemetics for development be realized in Ethiopia. African Regional Symposium on Telematics for Development, ECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2. [BITE 95] BITE (Bringing Internet To Ethiopia), Proposal For Internet Connectivity in Ethiopia, Nov. 3, 1995, Addis Ababa Ethiopia
3. [ECA 95a] Economic Commission for Africa, 1995. African Information Infrastructure: The Role of the Private Sector.
4. [ECA 95b] The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) High-Level Working Group on Information and Communications Technologies in Africa, 1995. Coordinator: Dr. Ben Fouche, Rapporteur: Derrick L. Cogburn, Developing Information Infrastructure for the African Information Society.
5. [ETA 94a] Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority, July 1994. Highlights in the development of Telecom in Ethiopia.
6. [ETA 94b] Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority, 1994. 1894-1994 Telecommunication services in Ethiopia.
7. [ETA 95a] Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority, 1995. Annual Statistical Bulletin. 30th issue
8. [ETA 95b] Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority, Sept. 1995. Traffic Measurement at international / national exchange
9. [ETA 96] Ethiopian Telecommunication Authority, 1996 Monthly Availability Statistics of Terrestrial Links.
10. [Fianyo 94] E. Fianyo, A. Corenthin, H. Chevillote, Les réseaux de communication au Sénégal : l'expérience du R.I.O. , CARI'94 Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
11. [Furzey 96] Jane Furzey, 1996. A critical examination of social, economic, technical and policy issues, with respect to the expansion or initiation of information and communications infrastructure in Ethiopia. A country study for the ECA high-level working group on information and communication technologies in Africa
12. [Leland 95] Leland Initiative, Empowering Africans in the Information Age, 1995. AFRICA GII GATEWAY, 698­0565.
13. [Negarit 52] Negarit Gazeta, 15th October, 1952. A proclamation for the establishment of the imperial board of telecommunications in Ethiopia
14. [Remy 94] D. Remy, M. Dandjinou, A. Giacometti, Oct. 94, Constitution d'un réseau de la recherche au Burkina Faso, CARI'94 Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

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Annex 1 : Ethiopia's Direct International link (1994/95)

Source: ETA's Annual Statistic Bulletin 1987 EFY

Legend: SAT = Satellite; MW = Microwave

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Annex 2 : Automatic Exchanges in Ethiopia

Stations having Automatic exchanges 1986-87 EFY

Source: ETA's Annual Statistic Bulletin 1987 EFY

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Stations having Digital exchanges 1986-87 EFY

Source: ETA's Annual Statistic Bulletin 1987 EFY

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Annex 3: Demand and offer of telephone lines

Telephone Subscriptions and Demand Statistics by year

Source: ETA's Annual Statistic Bulletin 1987 EFY

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About the Author: Dawit Bekele, Ph.D., is a professor at the Mathematics Department, Addis Ababa University. He can be reached at P. O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, or via Email Daiwt_Bekele@padis.gn.apc.org

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