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14 August, 2007
The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) commenced negotiation with the Somaliland government to wire the underground back-up fibre optics passing through the eastern part of the country to Berbera Port and link with the marine cable on the shore of the Red Sea.
Round table discussion took place two weeks ago between Amare Amsalu, ETC’s chief executive officer, who was on working visit to Hargessa, and officials of the Somaliland government, sources at ETC disclosed to Fortune.
Although the international community hesitated to recognise Somaliland’s independent sovereignty since 1995, it remains stable amid chaos across Somalia, even registering promising economic growth.
Despite the absence of diplomatic recognition from members of the international community, the Ethiopian government started to negotiate with the Somaliland government in 2005 and decided at the end of 2006 to use the Port of Berbera as an alternative to Djibouti.
Therefore, the Ethiopian government opened a liaison office in Hargessa, the seat of the Somaliland government. Ambassador Wubishet Demssie, former director of the Diaspora Directorate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) is delegated to Hargessa as liaison officer.
Sources from Somaliland told Fortune that Ambassador Wubishet looked after the visiting ETC’s CEO in his brief stay in Hargessa.
Speaking to Fortune, one senior ETC official stressed: “if the negotiation to wire the fibre optics succeeds, it would be a great achievement for the Corporation, for it would be the backbone of its important projects to wire the cross border fibre optics.”
ETC’s project to cable fibre optics that criss-cross in four directions of the country kicked-off in 2004.
Although, the effort to link the underground fibre optics from the side of Ethiopia to the international line via Djibouti was negotiated earlier than the others, the first international link that ETC maintained was through western Ethiopia via the Sudan.
Wiring the underground cable worked by ETC from inside Ethiopia and the opposite side from the Sudan done by Soda Tel stretched to meet at Metema, border town between Ethiopia and the Sudan. The link from this point started to provide services with the European countries for the past one year via Port Sudan.
Almost one year after the completion of the project that links Ethiopia and the Sudan through fibre optics in the western front, officials of the two countries met at Sheraton Addis on Wednesday, August 8, 2007, to honour the formal inauguration.
The fibre optics link with the Sudan has the capacity of 155 megabytes to carry messages such as images, voice and text data. One megabyte contains 32 channels. The Corporation pays 80,000 dollars every month for the services connection from the fibre optics, as it would be the case for the Sudan to pay to Ethiopia the same amount of money for the same services delivered monthly.
According to an international consultant who works in the telecom sector, in the next 10 years, ETC would potentially be expected to tap only 50pc of the 155 megabytes. However, prior to the introduction of the fibre optics technology, the satellite technology, through which system ETC provides the communications services, costs the country 360,000 dollars per month, sources confirmed.
On the one hand, if the on-going negotiation to maintain the fibre optics link via Berbera Port goes through and the negotiation started two years ago to connect from the eastern front via Djibouti succeeded on the other hand, they would be strong back-ups to sustain the connection, if incidences such as vandalising the underground fibre optics occurred.
By ISSAYAS MEKURIA - FORTUNE STAFF WRITER