Buildings in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa could be forced to open their rooftops for antennae installation as part of telecommunication improvements.
This follows Ethio Telecom making arrangements for the upgrading of lines because of the nation’s complaints of substandard landlines and bad quality of mobile calls.
“I would call it actually a problem in the planning, because they never foresaw buildings coming up in the future,” Danson Njue, East Africa Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, told ITWeb Africa.
The state-owned company has blamed the high buildings for network disruptions. More than 200 problematic locations have now been identified.
If the proposed bill is passed, property owners will be paid for the strategic installation of rooftop antennas.
Njue added the proposed solution might be a bit late, but that they would have to correct it anyway at some point.
As part of ongoing implementation plans the company has also divided the country into zoning areas, the Addis Fortune reported.
The division will ensure that each of the 11 infrastructure zones will be served sufficiently in equipment acquisition and operational management. Zone allocations are based on demography, customer base and geographical location.
Ethio Telecom is also the sole provider of telecommunication services to Ethiopians and are resistant to open up the market to other providers.
With less than a quarter of the population subscribed, Ethiopia is currently the lowest reached nation when it comes to being connected.
World Bank statistics reveal that only 20.3 million of 84 million Ethiopians are subscribers of networks and only 35 percent live outside of the capital.
HumanIPO reported on Ethio Telecom’s long-term evolution (LTE) plans for 2015 last month.
