Internet in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the Internet penetration rate is 25% as of January 2022, and it is currently attempting a broad expansion of access throughout the country.^[1] These efforts have been hampered by the largely rural makeup of the Ethiopian population and the government's refusal to permit any privatization of the telecommunications market.^[1] Only 360,000 people had Internet access in 2008, a penetration rate of 0.4%.^[2] The state-owned Ethio Telecom (previously known as Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC)) is the sole Internet service provider (ISP) in the country. Ethio Telecom comes in at very high prices which makes it difficult for private users to purchase it.

Internet cafés are the main source of access in urban areas, and an active community of bloggers and online journalists now play an important role in offering alternative news sources and venues for political dialogue. However, three quarters of the country's Internet cafés are in the capital city, Addis Ababa, and even there, access is often slow and unreliable. A test conducted by a Media Ethiopia researcher in July 2007 determined that the average connectivity speed was 5 kB/s and that Internet service in most cafés was unavailable between 10 and 20 percent of the time.^[3]