Instant 10,000 km of infrastructure for Ethiopia’s new operator
Kenyan telco Safaricom, whose Ethiopian subsidiary is the country’s newest telecom operator, has signed a five-year lease agreement with the state-owned power utility Ethiopian Electric Power enterprise (EEP) to share dark fibre-optic infrastructure in the Horn of African nation, reports The East African. The agreement was signed between Ashebir Balcha, EEP’s CEO and Anwar Soussa, Safaricom Ethiopia’s CEO.
Ethiopia’s state-owned electric producer currently has 15,000km of fibre optics lines of which 8,745km are leased to Ethio-Telecom. EEP is expected to earn up to 140 million Ethiopian Birr (ETB), roughly €2.47 million, a year in the first phase of its the infrastructure lease agreement with Safaricom Ethiopia.
Safaricom is first private and foreign player
Safaricom says it has finalised preparations to launch commercial operations to provide telecom services to Ethiopians, becoming the first private and foreign entity to offer these services in the country. Ashebir said the new agreement lays the foundation for the two enterprises to work together. The shared infrastructure will be used as part of Safaricom Ethiopia’s network to provide voice, data, video, text messages and conferencing services nationwide, officials said at the signing ceremony. EEP has spent decades building a network of Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) cables alongside its power cables and Safaricom will use these instead of laying its own. According to EEP, the first phase of the lease agreement allows the Kenyan telecom firm to share 4,097km, the second phase 2,078km and the third phase 2,904km long optic fibre lines.
Transforming Ethiopian lives
EEP’s high voltage transmission will be used as part of Safaricom’s network.“We are grateful for the spirit of cooperation from EEP on the win-win partnership to support our contributions to the digital transformation of Ethiopia,” said Safaricom Ethiopia’s Soussa at the signing ceremony on Saturday.
“Such infrastructure sharing agreements will enable us to fulfil our commitment to transform Ethiopian lives for a digital future and contribute to efforts being made to the phased operation launch,” said Soussa.
Mr Ashebir Balcha, EEP’s CEO said sharing the utility’s OPGW infrastructure will boost its revenue, while enabling Safaricom Ethiopia to provide quality and competitive telecom services.