Safaricom Ethiopia Expands Its Network Rollout to Harari

Sep 3 , 2022

Safaricom Ethiopia Plc has expanded its large-scale customer pilot project to Harari Regional State two days after the operator announced the roll-out of its first service in Dire Dawa City. The start of services by Safaricom Ethiopia marks a historic milestone for Ethiopia where the monopoly of a state-owned enterprise held in the telecom sector for over a century comes to an end. Earlier this year, communications regulatory authorities designated Safaricom Ethiopia the block number '07' for its mobile calls. It is the second designation of blocked numbers after the '09' in use by the state-owned monopoly, Ethio telecom. Last May, the company placed an order to buy the first batch of three million subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. Executives of Safaricom Ethiopia plan to widen the network coverage to 25 cities across the country by April 2023. In May 2012, Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) awarded the Global Partnership for Ethiopia Consortium (GPEC), led by Kenya's Safaricom, a 15-year operator's license for 850 million dollars.