The Worst Thing About Ethiopia

Ethiopia Telecommunications Corporation (ETC). Any questions? Okay, on to the next subject.

But wait, maybe some explanation is in order. In Ethiopia all telecommunications is provided by ETC, the Federal Government monopoly. This means all land-line telephones, cell phones, and internet services are provided by the government and only the government. No competition is allowed.

Think about this. If you are old enough you can remember the post office before UPS, when there was only one way to mail letters or packages. Remember the lines? Remember the slow service? Remember the surly counter service? If you're old enough, remember when Bell was the only telephone provider? The service was so bad that Lilly Tomlin made a living out of making fun of the phone company with lines like "we're The Phone Company, we do whatever we want." It's like that. Think about the service you get from the Cable TV people: "you want installation? Sit at home all day and maybe we'll come. And if you don't like it, too bad, there's only one Cable company. Hahahahaha!"

Some symptoms: land lines here work about 2/3 of the time. No kidding. Cell phones work more often, but the reception is bad and there are lots of busy signals where there just aren't any circuits available. Internet? Don't get me started. The entire country of Ethiopia has the same bandwidth as a fast T-1 line. I am not making this up. So, the average small to medium-sized company in North Carolina has the same speed of internet connection as the entire country of Ethiopia. And that's divided up between 77 million people. Of course a small portion of the population uses the internet, but that portion is growing exponentially. A 256 mbps connection in Chapel Hill cost me $40 month from Warner Cable. It went out of service 5 times in the 4 years I used it, never for more than a couple of hours. A 64 mbps line in Ethiopia costs $225 a month, $550 to install, and you're not guaranteed any portion of the speed you pay for. For example, at my office we pay for a 128 mbps connection. We get 5-8 mbps. Don't like it? Too bad, there's no alternative.

The US ambassador to Ethiopia in a recent speech took the GOE to task for their telecommunications monopoly, bad service, and antiquated technology. The ambassador rightly pointed out that in a wired and linked world, protecting the monopoly at the cost of service and connectivity will put Ethiopia further and further behind the rest of the world, including its East African neighbors.

So, here endeth the rant. But now that we've taken over both houses of congress, my Democratic brethren, think hard on this story before you go NAFTA bashing. And I promise to be happier next post. :-)

Comments

[Jenny]

Hmmmm. That has to be all kinds of frustrating. Especially when you can't take advantage of Skype or other VOIP technology for cheap calls to other countries. Boo!

Gah! Well, merry christmas, marco. When are you next coming back to town??

[Robert Luoma]

We love the blog. It would be a good substitute for the anual "letters" we get to tell us about friends activities for the past year. I just read the blog about the ETC. Dont' the people who run the government in any country know what's best? It's too comlicated to write about in a short note. Keep up the good work.

[Lois Goldstein]

Hi Marc and Laurel
Jody and Bob just told us about your blog last night, and both John and I have spent the afternoon reading it all! We appreciate your efforts at telling us what it's like to live in a different culture. Please keep posting; I have added you to my favorites! We have friends who spent 2 years living in Malaysia (he was helping to set up the cellphone system for Asia!), so we have heard these kinds of expat stories before. But we find it fascinating, and greatly appreciate your efforts.

[Marc]

Thanks, Lois. It's nice to get the feedback. The blog is turning out to be a great way to stay in touch especially with the families. It's interesting, though, that some people we've never met end up commenting. When I see the page view numbers I always wonder "who are these people?" Anyway it's fun. You should try it.

[Anomymous]

I take it you can 256 Kbit/s and 64 Kbit/s -otherwise your numbers don't seem all that slow nor expensive. :-)

[Joel Haasnoot]

Aside from the speed issue, I think you've totally forgotten to mention the 500 ms delay due to the satellite link, causing bad throughput. You may get real fast speeds at certain points, but 5 minutes later nothing at all. The whole countries internet rests on a satellite link, one that's not enough for the whole country.

I must say though, a few years ago it was only dialup, and the whole country had only a 2 megabit line. Apparently they raised it to 10 megabit when the rates became better... Now atleast you can get a dedicated line if you're lucky...