Safaricom, which as part of a consortium was in May 2021 named as the successful bidder for Ethiopia’s first new communications licence, has revealed that it is negotiating a network sharing deal with incumbent provider Ethio Telecom. According to Business Daily Africa, with Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia – as the new player will be known – gearing up to enter the market, its CEO Anwar Soussa was cited as saying the company was working with both Ethio Telecom and local telecoms regulator the Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) to finalise details of the sharing agreement. ‘Ethio Telecom and ourselves both have a commitment to [the] Digital Transformation Agenda. We are currently working together to establish a ‘win-win partnership’ to achieve this,’ the executive said, adding: ‘We are currently negotiating on national roaming and infrastructure sharing in line with the telecom proclamation and regulation framework overseen by the ECA.’
The news comes just a few days after the announcement that Safaricom Ethiopia had selected VMware as its ‘Telco Cloud Platform partner’. Speaking on that development, Pedro Rabacal, Chief Technology Officer at Safaricom Ethiopia, said: ‘Building a world-class network in Ethiopia will unlock its economic potential as well as build a positive future for people across the country … VMware Telco Cloud Platform will provide a robust platform for the deployment all network functions while also enabling flexibility as we scale and expand services.’