Safaricom Ethiopia has today announced that it has started large-scale customer pilot of its network. The company is conducting the initial tests in Dire Dawa, a city in Eastern Ethiopia.
According to the company, “This is part of its phased city-by-city regional network roll-out and rigorous service tests building towards the national launch.
Through these pilot tests, those in Dire Dawa will be able to enjoy 2G, 3G and 4G connectivity. They also have the opportunity to buy SIM cards and choose their preferred numbers on Safaricom Ethiopia’s 07 prefix.
The SIM cards are available in Safaricom Ethiopia branded shops and souks. Each SIM card purchase comes with a welcome offer of Data Voice, and SMS for customers to test and experience the network for one month.
The company has also announced that three shops in Kezira, Meskelegna and Cornell areas will be open to the public for customer registration, purchase of devices, and dedicated customer support.
Customers will also have the option of accessing customer care services from the call centre in their preferred language (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Af-Somali, Tigrigna, and English), by dialling 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. 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. We will continue to share updates, as we extend the network and customer pilot across other regions, towards our National Launch in October 2022,” said Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia.
This customer pilot in Dire Dawa is part of switching on our network and services in 25 cities by April 2023.
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