Ethio telecom Says Exerting Extra Effort to Restore Telecom Service in Tigray Regional State

Addis Ababa December 10/2020 (ENA) Ethio telecom announced that it has been exerting maximum effort to restore the telecom infrastructure in Tigray Regional State and resume services across the region.

Briefing the media today, Ethio telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamiru said telecom service has been disrupted in the region since November 4, 2020 due to system manipulation by illegal entities.

The service was stopped following TPLF’s surprise attack on the Northern Command of Ethiopian National Defense Force in the early hours of the assault, she added.

According to her, the current unprecedented crisis is a result of damages on telecom infrastructures and all alternative routes from Mekelle and Shire core sites, in addition to the commercial power blackout in the region.

Speaking about the incident on the day telecom service was disrupted, Frehiwot said the senior leadership and the technical experts of the company had received critical messages on service outage from the National Network Operation Center.

“We immediately came to office and took several measures to secure the National Network, managed various system manipulations by the illegal entities and exerted maximum effort to assess the infrastructure status as well as restore the service in the region,” she recalled.

Frehiwot pointed out that Ethio telecom has substantial information and evidence that external entities, other than Ethio telecom security staff in Mekele city, caused service outage in the Northern Region.

“We have provided the information and the evidence from CCTV cameras in the core sites and our system for the Federal Police investigation team; and the investigation is underway,” the CEO revealed.

Apart from telecom service disruption, massive cyber-attack attempts have been made and Ethio telecom has foiled those attempts which were mainly denial of services and unauthorized access attempts.  

Close to 40 billion cyber attacks were made in 14 days alone and the attacks targeted the country’s major systems and sites, including government, education, Ethio telecom, the broadcasting media and financial systems, Frehiwot disclosed.

She said Ethio telecom is working in collaboration with Ethiopian Electric Utility, Security apparatuses and the Interim Administration of Tigray Regional State to address the challenge and resume full telecom service.

It is to be recalled that the company has resumed telecom services fully in Alamata and partially in Dansha, Humera, Maikadra and Korem.