Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) intoduces new service

The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) has launched a pilot for notifying post paid mobile phone subscribers of their bills through text messages.
“This message is for testing purpose notifying postpaid customer’s bill through SMS, your bill for Feb 2009 is Birr……Thank you. ETC,” runs the first message the corporation sent on March 24.

ETC has allocated different time periods for postpaid subscribers to pay their dues. The payment period extends for seven days which will be followed by disconnection of the line. When the line is disconnected, subscribers are able only to receive calls. After 45 days, ETC cancels the contract with the subscriber and its legal department deals with the issue.

A postpaid subscriber told Planet this system saves him the 20 birr he pays every time his mobile phone line is disconnected. “I always forget the time I have to pay my bill, I know it when I call and a woman’s voice tells me my line has been disconnected and will be reconnected when I pay,” said the Corporation’s long time subscriber.

The state monopoly ETC has 1,215,032 mobile subscribers as of March last year.
Just recently, the corporation announced that it has launched a prepaid WCDMA 3G mobile phone service in 50 selected areas in Addis Ababa.

To get access to 3G WCDMA service a customer is required to buy a 3G WCDMA mobile apparatus and WCDMA SIM card which costs more than 500 birr.

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