ETHIOPIA-COMMUNICATION: Internet — A Statist Model

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis Peter da Costa

ADDIS ABABA, Sep 10 1996 (IPS) - Many African states are coming to terms with the need to open up telecommunications so as to facilitate the development of an African information superhighway.

However, Ethiopia’s government is on the verge of introducing a bill likely to reinforce the monopoly the state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Authority (ETA) has over the sector.

The proposed move is a chapter in a bigger story in Africa where some governments — facing loss of control over information and of revenue — are trying to hold on to the telecommunications sector and also run value-added services such as the Internet.

According to reliable sources, the government of President Meles Zenawi is to introduce the legislation in October. It would make the ETA — already the sole provider of telecommunications in the country — the only supplier of Internet services.

In June, parliament amended Ethiopia’s Investment bill, liberalising it in a number of ways but, at the same time, increasing state control over the telecommunications sector. The new bill contradicts a 1952 proclamation establishing an Imperial Board of Telecommunications in Ethiopia, that left room for private contractors to provide value-added services.

Article 3 of the 1952 proclamation reads: “The Board shall have the exclusive right to engage in the construction, operation and maintenance of telecommunication other than military telecommunication…” and “… may in its discretion enter into arrangements with other persons, public or private, for the operation of specified telecommunication facilities.”

IPS has obtained an internal ETA draft document which makes it clear that ETA will be the “sole provider of Internet …” in Ethiopia.

Despite a recent statement by Transport and Communications Minister Abdulmejid Hussein that Ethiopia would “provide the quickest services at affordable prices,” there is no evidence of a pricing policy in the ETA Internet blueprint.

The document merely states that “ETA will offer you competitive prices for your access to the Internet”. In the absence of competition, however, it is hard to see in relation to what prices ETA intends to be competitive.

ETA has already admitted that it has signed an agreement with the U.S. telecommunications giant Sprint to bring full Internet connectivity to Ethiopia. Details of the agreement have not been officially released, but experts have speculated that it is similar to one between Sprint and ZPTC, Zimbabwe’s state-owned utility, which is also planning to offer Internet services.

However, there is a key difference, says networking expert Mike Jensen: while Zimbabwe Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (ZPTC) is turning a blind eye to semi-clandestine private e-mail and Internet service providers, the ETA is demanding that all other e-mail service providers close down.

Members of the networking community in Ethiopia are alarmed at the prospect of having to rely on a service run by ETA which, they believe, lacks the capacity needed to manage a commercial Internet operation in one of the world’s poorest countries.

They stress that Ethiopia’s telecommunications infrastructure — once the pride of the region — is now outdated and largely unserviceable. They argue that this, coupled with poor service management (people wait up to ten years for telephone lines to be installed), makes ETA an extremely weak candidate for sole provision of Internet services.

Hussein’s retort is that the government will increase installations by 8,000 percent a year over the next two years. But few believe that this ambitious plan — if it does go ahead — is enough to enable ETA to provide an adequate service.

ETA’s Internet team “haven’t yet worked out pricing issues or policy,” an information technology professional based here told IPS on condition of anonymity. “They are thinking of a flat fee operation — with what you get for your flat fee not yet defined.”

Another expert, an international civil servant well-versed in the issues at hand, is adamant that the Ethiopian government is going about things the wrong way. “The government says it has to generate income to subsidise the extension of its networks to rural areas. This is why they say they want complete government control of telecomms services,” he told IPS.

“But can this rural level of telecomms be achieved by maintaining the monopoly, or could it be achieved by working with the private sector? The best idea would be retaining state ownership of the telecomms infrastructure and devolving the service side to the private sector. The Ethiopian government simply fails to understand this.”

“They should let the service side be operated by the private sector,” adds the expert. “But they have not yet done enough research. For e-mail, the maximum they will make apart from dial- up fees is subscription fees, which are not going to be significant because of the low level of income in Ethiopia.

“They will also have to pay the cost of the node, and might end up losing money — therefore they will not be able to generate money out of running e-mail services to cover the cost of the development of rural telephony.”

That said, the consensus seems to be that the government may still be open to lobbying from stakeholders. Last month, for example, it announced that it was liberalising the importation of modems, satellite dishes, telephone apparatus and other equipment which, for years, had been either banned or limited to foreigners and international organisations.

The Ethiopian government’s Internet plans have sent shock waves through the Addis-based U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the focal point in the region for initiatives to network Africa. ECA’s Pan-African Information Development System (PADIS) established an e-mail system in 1991 to make it easier to receive and disseminate information from and to its constituencies.

Today, the PADIS e-mail system, with 2,600 subscribers who benefit from a highly-subsidised and relatively efficient service, is slated for closure. Negotiations are ongoing between PADIS and ETA, which has ordered the ECA to hand over all relevant expertise and equipment to ETA until the Authority can develop its own capacity to run a complex Internet operation of which e-mail is only a single component.

“ETA thought PADIS was a commercial operation, and as such should be under the auspices of the ETA to handle commercially,” Mbaye Diouf, Head of Conference and General Services at ECA, told IPS. “But our position was that the FidoNet and GreenNet nodes were non-commercial and could not be handed over to ETA.”

Nancy Hafkin, PADIS’ officer-in-charge, confirms that PADIS is likely to discontinue its e-mail services — once ETA starts up its Internet service and if the government insists on maintaining its telecommunications monopoly.

“We have been offering subsidies to the public sector such as free modems and installation, especially to the university community,” Hafkin told IPS. “What will happen to those users once the ETA’s Internet service comes into existence? We hope the government will consider continuing this subsidy in order to enable this vital group to continue its easy access to stores of information in the world outside.

“Also,” adds Hafkin, “we are worried about continued e-mail access for low end users — people whose current messaging bills run at around 10 to 15 dollars a month, and who comprise nearly half of the current PADIS FidoNet users. Will they be able to afford access fees of 50 dollars a month?”

Potential Internet stakeholder groups in Ethiopia are already suffering the fallout from the official policy. Bringing Internet to Ethiopia (BITE) — the country’s premier Internet pressure group — is reported to have died more or less as soon as ETA announced the Sprint deal.

It is a matter of great irony, note observers, that while ECA is spearheading an African Information Society Initiative (AISI) to harness the use of information and communication technologies for development with an emphasis on participation of all stakeholders, the government of its host country is moving to become the sole player in the Internet business.

These observers point to Ethiopia’s proud uncolonised heritage and to a hangover of the securocrat mentality engendered under former Marxist president Mengistu Haile Mariam as accounting, in part, for the underlying wish of the current regime to control information — particularly as Zenawi’s brand of de-centralised political pluralism has alienated some sections of the society.

“To be frank,” explains one analyst in Addis Ababa referring to the several Ethiopia-specific Internet discussion groups, “the anti-Zenawi opposition in the North generates a lot of messages on the Internet attacking individuals in the government. This can cause inconvenience. So if the government controls the link, they can put up firewalls (intelligent electronic barriers) to keep the politically negative information out.”

UN sources in Addis Ababa and New York locate the focus of opposition to liberalisation of the telecomms sector in the president’s office. It is at this level that the UN is attempting to engage the government to promote a more open mindset.

Other bilateral and multilateral agencies involved with the development of Africa’s information superhighway are also looking for ‘wriggle room’ in Ethiopia. In early August a two-person USAID Leland Initiative team held discussions in Addis Ababa with officials at the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications.

IPS has not yet received responses to questions posed about the team, which was led by John Mack, Director in the U.S. Department of State for Telecommunication, Trade and Development Policy in Africa and the Middle East. But reliable sources say it submitted a memorandum of understanding to the ministry hoping it would be signed.

Leland is a multi-million dollar U.S. government-funded initiative that aims to promote Internet connectivity in Africa and it normally works in environments where there is competition.

Informed sources suggest that while the government is keen to accept any assistance that Leland offers, particularly in training ETA staff, it is resisting Leland’s proviso that it open up Internet service provision to private participation.

The bottom line, insist analysts, is that in the short term the Internet will be a state-controlled affair. Security issues aside, before the Zenawi government even considers allowing private service providers into Ethiopia, it will have to satisfy itself that ETA will not lose market share.

The conventional wisdom is, however, that once the government calculates the real cost of guaranteeing access countrywide in line with its rural development-based telecommunications philosophy, it will welcome private capital and participation, if only to ease the burden.

But for now, says an Ethiopian networking expert, “telecomms is the largest profit-making state-controlled industry next to the national airline, (so) privatisation is unlikely to take place for the next few years”.