Telecommunications in Ethiopia

The first telephones were brought by Ras Makonnen from Italy in 1890, and connected between the Palace and the Imperial treasury; the sound of disembodied voices frightened the local priests, who thought it was the work of demons.

[3] Emperor Haile Selassie had begun the process of introducing radio transmitters to the country for civilian and military use in the years before the Italian invasion.

Since 26 September 2017 until end of 2018 it was not possible to buy and use Ethio telecom SIM cards in mobile devices that have not been purchased in Ethiopia or registered with the authorities.

[9] Ethio telecom has launched the Fourth Generation (4G) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) service on 21 March 2015 in line with the help of the Chinese company HUAWEI.

As part of the efforts to expand its service and improve network quality, Ethio telecom had built 725 stations in Addis Ababa alone during the past 20 years.

Damages on fiber optic cables and power interruptions are among the challenges the service provider faced in its expansion and network quality improvement efforts.