This comes after the authority called for stakeholder engagement on November 16, 2022, for the third telecoms operating license. Only one new operator was chosen, so the ECA canceled the bid for the other license. Following the cancellation, ECA issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the second brand-new full-service national Telecommunications Service License on September 28, 2021, and the bidding procedure was still ongoing. But the process was over when ECA said that the bidders had temporarily pulled their bids in December 2021. On May 31, 2021, the ECA gave Ethiopia’s first ever competitively-tendered Unified Telecommunications Operator License to the Global Partnership for Ethiopia (“License A”), a private partnership made up of Safaricom (Kenya),Sumitomo Corporation (Japan), Vodafone Group (UK), CDC Group (UK), and Vodacom Group (South Africa) are now doing business as Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia.

Source: Ethiopian News January 03, 2023 00:30 UTC