Tuesday January 6, 2004

ZTE to grab 15% of Ericsson’s mobile territory

Things will get better before they get worse?

By Tamiru Geda

When ZTE, one of China’s telecom giant came to Ethiopia a few years ago, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation was skeptical of its performance. Today, it looks as though ZTE is not only getting recognition from ETC and gaining confidence but also territory.
ZTE is now assigned to develop part of the mobile network system that was supposed to be handled by the Swedish Erickson. This was proposed in early April 2003 following mobile users persistent complaints on the ongoing congestion due to high traffic on the existing lines. The need to upgrade the existing mobile network system, if nothing else but to get some relief from bitter customer dissatisfaction was felt by ETC technicians who came up with a proposal and forwarded it to management. Fearing that it may not be capable of handling the project, the latter initially hesitated until mid December 2003 before deciding to give the assignment to ZTE.
According to the information obtained from the ETC, Eriksson’s network serves 65% of mobile users in Addis Ababa while the network capacity is less than 40% of the total 160,000 lines. To curb the congestion problem and provide a better service, ETC has decided to shift 15% of these subscribers into a new network that is set up by ZTE. The new territory ZTE acquired from Erickson includes Kazanchis, Kebena, Chefe Meda, Chid Tera, and Meskel Square 2 (including areas around Lion house 1 & Lion house 2).
The same sources explained that during peak hours over 65% of mobile users are operating in the territories assigned to Erickson, making the congestion rate very high.
Also the infrastructure work that is supposed to be installed within the Erickson territory has not yet been completed due to delay in the civil work construction of equipments rooms and delay in obtaining permission from the City Government to put up the cells.
According to the sources, unless the cell and switching capacity that serves the mobile users in the downtown area is expanded, the problem of congestion will not be solved.
ETC on the other ever mounting pressure from the public, has been issuing lines without giving much attention to the completion of the infrastructures.
Eriksson’s territory includes areas like, French Legasion, Arada, Sidist Kilo, Meskel Square, Floha, and Addis Ketema, whereas ZTE’s network includes, Gurd Shola, Megenagna, Yeka, Hana Mariam, Bole and Keranio. Sources from ETC seem confident that the mobile congestion would be, for the most part, solved in the coming weeks; at least things would get better. Capital also learned that ETC is going to resume providing mobile lines for its customers in the waiting list, which may number close to 100,000.