March 23, 2005
Ethiopia. The SIM card stampede
Young men got up early to push and shove to get hold of one of the 200,000 new mobile phone lines that have been offered to the public over the past few weeks, reports Andrew Heavens in his weblog about Ethiopia, Meskel Square via Smart Mobs
"Those lines have been a long time coming. For years there has been a huge backlog in the SIM cards distributed exclusively through Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), a state monopoly. Until recently, the only way to get one was to go one a two-year waiting list, rent one by the week, or get a letter from some ministry pushing you ahead of the queue.
The recent rush for SIM cards highlights two things. First, and most obviously, there is the huge demand for mobile phones in Ethiopia and beyond that Africa as a whole. The second is the inefficiency of leaving the state to run a country's telecommunications industry. There is a huge demand for mobile telecoms in Ethiopia and - in the worldwide market - there is a huge supply of mobile handsets and services. But, for some reason, over here supply is so limited that the arrival of some SIM cards starts a stampede."
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