Safaricom Ethiopia places first call ahead of commercial roll out

Safaricom Ethiopia has made the first technical call setting stage for full rollout of commercial telecommunications services in the country slated for June this year.

The technical staff placed the call on it network on February 5, 2021 in what appears to be a test run posted by the firm through its official twitter handle.

“And we have the technical first call. Well done to the Team! Safaricom Ethiopia,” said Anwar Soussa, Safaricom Ethiopia Chief Executive Officer via his official Twitter handle said,

And we have the technical first call 🙌🏽 Well done to the Team! Safaricom Ethiopia #beautifulbeginnings pic.twitter.com/3xMCcQIpvL

— Anwar Soussa (@AnwarSoussa) February 5, 2022

“Excited to announce that we just made our first technical call. This is a huge milestone as @SafaricomET builds the network and I am extremely proud of the team for achieving this!” said Pedro Rabacal Safaricom Ethiopia Chief Technology Officer via Twitter.

Excited to announce that we just made our first 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹
This is a huge milestone as @SafaricomET builds the network and I am extremely proud of the team for achieving this!#WeAreComing pic.twitter.com/QA1lmdDA3i

— Pedro Rabaçal (@pedrorabacal1) February 5, 2022

The telco has lined up at least Kshs. 200 billion for capital expenditure which will see it establish 1000 sites during the first year of launch and 12,000 sites within a decade.

In May last year, Global Partnership for Ethiopia, a consortium which includes Safaricom Plc, South Africa’s Vodacom, UK’s Vodafone, British finance agency CDC Group, and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation won the Kshs. 91.8 billion 15-year license to roll out telecommunications services in the country after competitive bidding process to become first private mobile telecommunications service provider in the country.

Later in July, the Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) gave Safaricom Plc the go-ahead to roll out nationwide services under the name Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia Plc.

Safaricom Ethiopia targets to roll out voice, SMS and data services under its current license by mid this year before expanding to mobile money services.

At the end of last month, the firm announced the establishment of its first retail and distribution centre.

The telco is targeting to tap the 112 million Ethiopian market which is still largely dominated by state owned Ethio telecom.