February 6, 2006
Speed trials
Like I said below, I'm no economist. But here are some more numbers that I've been crunching.
The cost of a 2mbps broadband connection from British Telecom - former state monopoly:
Set-up cost:
ETB 0 (£0/US$0)
Monthly charge
ETB 275 (£17.99*/US$31.50)
[* After the first three months. Before that there is a £14.99 special offer with free modem.]
The cost of a 2mbps broadband connection from Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp - current state monopoly:
Set-up cost:
ETB 103,406 (£6,763/US$11,849)
Monthly charge
ETB 41,479 (£2,713/US$4,753)
[The ETC prices are for ADSL on a leased line. Back in June 2005, ETC did say that it had also "introduced a new type of Internet Service coined as 'Shared DSL', which could fall in between the Leased Line and Dial-Up Internet services" which was only ETB 905/month for a not-so-bad 256 Kbps connection. (See the full release here.) But today, almost seven months later, the woman at the tele office told me that the Shared DSL service had been delayed and would not be online for at least another four months.]
Oh to be in Somalia....
Posted by aheavens at February 6, 2006 2:41 PM