Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC has begun a large-scale customer pilot of its network in Dire Dawa City on Monday.
This is part of the company’s phased city-by-city regional network roll-out and rigorous service tests building towards its national launch, the company announced in a statement.
The customer pilot in Dire Dawa will be on 2G, 3G and 4G networks and customers will be able to purchase SIM cards and choose their preferred numbers on Safaricom Ethiopia’s 07 prefix.
The Safaricom Ethiopia SIM cards will be available in the branded shops and come with a welcome offer of Data, Voice, and SMS for customers to test and experience the network for one month. In addition to the welcome package, customers will also be able to actively purchase airtime vouchers from branded shops to recharge their airtime balance to continue using services on the network.
Three shops in Kezira, Meskelegna and Cornell areas will be open to the public for customer registration, purchase of devices, and dedicated customer support.
On Safaricom Ethiopia’s test network in Dire Dawa, customers will be able to use data services, make calls and send SMS to Safaricom Ethiopia and Ethio Telecom customers, and make international calls worldwide.
Customers will also have the option of accessing customer care services from the call center in their preferred language (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Somaligna, Tigrigna, and English), by dialing 700 to speak to the customer experience agents.
“We are excited to begin our customer pilot for Safaricom Ethiopia’s network and services In Dire Dawa. This is an important milestone we begin opening the network to customers in order to test the end-to-end readiness of technical and commercial operations ahead of full network launch,” Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia, said.
“We thank the Government of Ethiopia, the Dire Dawa City Administration, the Ethiopian Communications Authority, community leaders, network, IT and distribution partners and all stakeholders for all their support towards realizing this and future milestones, he said, adding, “We will continue to share updates, as we extend the network and customer pilot across other regions, towards our National Launch in October 2022.”
Thls customer pilot In Dire Dawa is part of switching on our network and services in 25 cities by April 2023, working in partnership with government, businesses, local communities, and other stakeholders as part of our long-term commitment to transforming lives for a digital future in line with the Digital Ethiopia objectives.
