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Broadband Internet costs up to 41,000 birr/ month in Ethiopia

Posted on , Updated on by Elias Kifle

The following information is about the phone and internet communications that are available in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the cost of these services.

Telephone Service
International telephone service in Ethiopia is quite expensive compared to many other countries. Telephone calling cards do not work here and none are issued in Ethiopia. Calling from Addis Ababa to other countries require using the Ethiopian international direct dialing rates.

It is possible to obtain calling cards, issued outside the country for calling into Ethiopia, but the rates, about 35 cents a minute, are more expensive than the calling cards for many other countries. However, this is much cheaper than calling from Ethiopia. Not all calling card providers provide calling cards for Ethiopia.

Mobile Phones
Most out-of-country cellular phone services will not work in Addis Ababa. However, it is possible to obtain mobile phone service here. If you have an unlocked cell phone that uses a SIM card, you can replace the SIM card with one from Ethiopia.

We bought an Ethiopian SIM card from a cell phone shop at the Addis Ababa Hilton Hotel and installed it in our unlocked cell phone. The SIM card cost us 368 BIRR ($38 USD) and we had to fill out a one-page application form and provide a copy of my passport. We also paid 100 BIRR ($10.40 USD) for additional air time (this is a prepaid service). The shop lady told us that local calls were .75 BIRR ($.08 USD) per minute, and international calls were 13 BIRR ($1.35 USD) per minute. The local calls worked on our cell phone instantly, but it took a couple of days before we were able to call internationally. We were not able to get the text messaging service to work yet, but other people here with cell phones can text message OK. We were advised by friends that the phone settings may need to be corrected.

If you do not have an unlocked cell phone that uses a SIM card, you may have to buy a cell phone in Addis Ababa. The prices of the Nokia cell phones sold at the cell phone shop range from 750 BIRR ($78 USD) to 3,000 BIRR ($312 USD).

Internet
Internet service in Ethiopia is slow and expensive compared to most other countries. The major hotels have broadband internet service but it does slow down to a crawl during periods of high internet usage.

Houses in Addis Ababa that have internet access use mostly dial-up service. Broadband access is expensive and takes about one year to get it installed. The following are the internet prices.

Type of Service Initial Price Monthly Price
64Kbs ADSL 4,608 BIRR 1,986 BIRR
128Kbs ADSL 7,533 BIRR 3,140 BIRR
256Kbs ADSL 13,925 BIRR 6,096 BIRR
512Kbs ADSL 26,708 BIRR 12,008 BIRR
1Mb ADSL 52,274 BIRR 23,832 BIRR
2Mb ADSL 103,406 BIRR 41,479 BIRR
Dial-UP 156 BIRR 60 BIRR
(Presently 9.6 BIRR = $1 USD)
The above ADSL prices are with leased lines. Shared DSL is not available yet.

Dial-Up monthly price includes 900 minutes free service. Over 900 minutes cost 0.04 BIRR per minute, except on working days from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm which is 0.07 BIRR per minute.

Source: Danmarie

Internet phone services such as Skype are illegal to use in Ethiopia and the Skype website is blocked.

Internet Cafe’s are popular in Addis Ababa and several have 128Kbs broadband service.

5 thoughts on “Broadband Internet costs up to 41,000 birr/ month in Ethiopia”

  1. “Skype are illegal to use in Ethiopia and the Skype website is blocked.”

    By the way not only skype but also all private non-weyane sympathizers websites are blocked in Ethiopia, and if anyone cought using such medias is considered as a crime by weyane illegitimate government.

    Apart from medias, do you know that almost everything is blocked in Ethiopia including freedom of speech, democracy, rule of law, justice, free market, food, and all other things in Ethiopia is only operated by weyane officials while the entire people are blocked to get it.

    It is so amazing that Ethiopia is one of the country that being try to entertain a view against the government is considered as a crime and can allow the person to stay in jail along with the variety of harassment that comes from the agazi members.

    In general, life is blocked in Ethiopia, most people daily life is restricted to count the days of their death, while Ethiopia is the place to live only for weyane officials, members and supporters, while the other vast majority are suffering with the high unaffordable inflation rate, diesese such as HIV/AIDS and others that cannot be preventable due to lack of money and lack of distribution and lack of malnutrition, along with the daily weyane oppression.

    Ethiopia is simply becomes the impossible place to live excpt you are an idiot and DEDEB memeber and sympetizer OF WEYANE.

    The only time when life can be affordable and when Ethiopia become a place to live for its own citizens is when weyane is completely removed and lets us all work to bring that day to Ethiopia along with many freedom fighters and best leadership of Ginbot 7, lets fight the fight……

    Death to all members and supporters of weyane…..

  3. I was in Ethiopia working as a computer programmer last year. I can tell you that it is next to impossible to have a half working internet service. It was frustrating and expensive.

    Even if you can afford to pay the most expensive broadband service that is offered by the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC), you will be lucky to get the service. Most of the telephone copper lines are not adequate enough to transmit broadband service. In my case, I was told that I can’t have broadband service in my house.

    It is a shame that Ethiopia has one of the lowest internet, telephone and mobile penetration density in Africa.

  5. I’ve studied the last three Governments in Ethiopia. Of course there are many problems in the country but I think its also fair to say that the Government has made significant progress in the last 18 years . In fact, the present Govt is arguably the most promising Govt Ethiopia has had in the last 80 yrs or so (in terms of impovements for the average Ethiopian).

    Of course, as in most African countries, tribalism is rife, so you ‘ll probably find members of other tribes who will only dwell on the negative and not give a balanced view.

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