Ethiopia
Overview
Ethiopia has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world. Despite initiatives to expand access, state control over the telecommunications industry has hampered development. Ethiopia houses only one ISP, EthioTelecom, which has one non-independent regulator, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency. Since 2006, the government has required users to register themselves at cybercafés. The government also filters websites of news outlets, political organizations, and circumvention tools and uses various laws to stifle online discourse, including an anti-terrorism law under which it has convicted 11 journalists.
Access
At 1.5 percent, Ethiopia has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in Africa. Ethiopia’s mobile phone penetration is much higher at 24 percent. The country has created several initiatives to expand Internet access, with limited success. In 2005 the government launched a three-year plan to link the nation’s schools, hospitals, and government offices via satellite or fiber optic cable. While the WoredaNET and SchoolNET networks do operate, slow speeds and power outages have limited their impact. By 2013, the country had reportedly laid 10,000 kilometers of cable, but it had yet to connect to an international undersea cable such as the EASSy, SEACOM, or TEAMS. Partly as a result of these infrastructure issues, broadband access in Ethiopia was the second most expensive in the world in 2010. Ethiopia has one ISP, the state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (now known as EthioTelecom) and one regulator, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency, which acts more as an arm of the Ministry of Transport and Communications than as an independent agency.
Control
As of May 2012, Ethiopian law made the use of Skype and other Voice-over-IP (VoIP) networks a criminal offense, punishable with fines and up to 15 years in prison. The move attempts to protect the state-owned EthioTelecom from losing revenue to networks such as Skype. The government has also filtered content since 2006, blocking sites of political dissidents and the entire domains of Blogger and the Ethiopian news portal Nazret in 2007. The OpenNet Initiative has detected filtering of news sites, political organization sites, and circumvention tools. Sites occasionally appear unblocked when international attention focuses on Ethiopia’s censorship; this happened in 2009 after a US State Department report condemned Ethiopia and again in May 2011 during World Press Freedom Day. Internet access went down for at least half a day in May 2011 in the days before an anti-government protest, though the cause of the shutdown was unclear. In May 2012 the Tor project found evidence of deep packet inspection.
Activity
Ethiopia’s netizen community remains small due to the country’s lack of Internet penetration, but there is growing interest in and demand for greater Internet access. Blogging gained popularity around the country’s 2005 election but has diminished as the government has cracked down on those who publish online. In 2009, Ethiopia passed an anti-terrorism proclamation. Since then, 11 journalists have received prison sentences under the law. Six were convicted in absentia, five are in prison, and two await trial under the law as of March 2013.
At 1.5 percent, Ethiopia has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in Africa. Ethiopia’s mobile phone penetration is much higher at 24 percent. The country has created several initiatives to expand Internet access, with limited success. In 2005 the government launched a three-year plan to link the nation’s schools, hospitals, and government offices via satellite or fiber optic cable. While the WoredaNET and SchoolNET networks do operate, slow speeds and power outages have limited their impact. By 2013, the country had reportedly laid 10,000 kilometers of cable, but it had yet to connect to an international undersea cable such as the EASSy, SEACOM, or TEAMS. Partly as a result of these infrastructure issues, broadband access in Ethiopia was the second most expensive in the world in 2010. Ethiopia has one ISP, the state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (now known as EthioTelecom) and one regulator, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency, which acts more as an arm of the Ministry of Transport and Communications than as an independent agency.
As of May 2012, Ethiopian law made the use of Skype and other Voice-over-IP (VoIP) networks a criminal offense, punishable with fines and up to 15 years in prison. The move attempts to protect the state-owned EthioTelecom from losing revenue to networks such as Skype. The government has also filtered content since 2006, blocking sites of political dissidents and the entire domains of Blogger and the Ethiopian news portal Nazret in 2007. The OpenNet Initiative has detected filtering of news sites, political organization sites, and circumvention tools. Sites occasionally appear unblocked when international attention focuses on Ethiopia’s censorship; this happened in 2009 after a US State Department report condemned Ethiopia and again in May 2011 during World Press Freedom Day. Internet access went down for at least half a day in May 2011 in the days before an anti-government protest, though the cause of the shutdown was unclear. In May 2012 the Tor project found evidence of deep packet inspection.
Ethiopia’s netizen community remains small due to the country’s lack of Internet penetration, but there is growing interest in and demand for greater Internet access. Blogging gained popularity around the country’s 2005 election but has diminished as the government has cracked down on those who publish online. In 2009, Ethiopia passed an anti-terrorism proclamation. Since then, 11 journalists have received prison sentences under the law. Six were convicted in absentia, five are in prison, and two await trial under the law as of March 2013.