Ethiotelecom, once expected to be a pillar of national development and connectivity, has degenerated into what can only be described as a state-sponsored scam machine. With full monopoly over the telecom sector, it has become unaccountable, predatory, and deeply corrupt. The company is supposed to provide affordable, reliable communication services to over 100 million Ethiopians—but instead, it robs them in broad daylight through a series of exploitative and deceptive practices that would be considered illegal in any functioning democracy.
Let’s start with the most basic service: airtime. Recharge 100 birr, and within moments—without a single call made or data used—it vanishes. Ethiotelecom’s airtime is like vapor. Users across the country report losing credit mysteriously, even when mobile data is turned off. The so-called system is rigged with hidden charges, unexplained deductions, and automatic subscriptions to services people never requested. What do you call an entity that takes your money without consent? If a man did that on the street, we’d call him a thief. But when a government-backed telecom company does it? Silence.
The cost of calls and mobile data is absurd. Ethiotelecom charges some of the highest rates in Africa, yet offers some of the worst quality. Imagine paying premium prices for a service that barely functions. Voice calls drop frequently. Internet connections crawl. And yet, the prices keep climbing. Since the government’s macroeconomic changes took effect, internet data prices have nearly doubled, but the quality has deteriorated sharply. What exactly are people paying for? It’s certainly not performance. This is nothing short of extortion masked as service delivery.
Adding insult to injury is the never-ending flood of spam messages. Ethiotelecom actively allows its users to be bombarded with unwanted SMS ads. These aren’t occasional promotional messages—they are a constant stream of spam that fills up your inbox, eats your time, and in many cases, deceives you into subscribing to unwanted games, news alerts, or “services” that drain your credit. Many users are tricked into recurring subscriptions with no clear opt-out process. It's a business model built on confusion and consent manipulation.
Then there’s Telebirr, the mobile money platform that was once launched with fanfare and hope. What began as a promising leap toward financial inclusion has now turned into a breeding ground for shady accounting, unpaid commissions, and outright theft. Shop owners who become agents often complain that they’re not paid their dues. One merchant shared how he sold top-ups and services worth thousands—yet his commission never came. The company's internal accounting is opaque, and trying to reach customer service is a joke. It’s not just incompetence; it looks like calculated deception.
Telebirr's so-called "Super App" is another disaster. It’s bloated, buggy, and mostly useless. Instead of focusing on fixing network reliability and fair pricing, Ethiotelecom invested heavily into launching an online marketplace inside the app. No standalone website, no user protections, and no transparency. Even worse, the marketplace is riddled with overpriced, low-quality products, and the entire setup feels like a rush job to chase fintech trends while abandoning basic service obligations.
What makes things even riskier is the sheer negligence in areas like airtime recharge cards. Unlike secure scratch cards printed with layered protection, Ethiotelecom’s top-up cards are printed with fully exposed numbers. Anyone who sees your card can use it. This isn’t just laziness—it’s reckless disregard for customer security. Even Telebirr used to operate on free internet access, which made it accessible to more people. Now that has been revoked too, making it harder for poor citizens to even check balances without paying.
All of this is topped off with excessive service charges. Sending money through Telebirr can cost users a ridiculous fee, sometimes up to 500 birr. It’s one thing to charge for convenience. It’s another to rob users under the label of "service fees." Ethiotelecom’s greed knows no limits, and every new product or platform seems designed not to help users, but to extract more money from them with as little accountability as possible.
What’s truly disturbing is the sense that all of this is protected by political immunity. Under Abiy Ahmed’s early leadership, there was a moment of hope—prices slightly improved, and internet access was slowly expanding. But since the so-called macroeconomic reforms, everything has gone backward. The leadership of Ethiotelecom appears untouchable, and the company operates with zero oversight. Instead of fixing its telecom infrastructure, the management chases mobile money schemes and digital marketplaces, all while millions of users suffer daily.
In conclusion, Ethiotelecom is no longer a public service provider—it’s a legalized scam factory, draining the nation’s economy one user at a time. The people running it should be held accountable, not just by national regulators but by international organizations that monitor fraud and financial exploitation. When a company becomes this corrupt, and when the government turns a blind eye, it’s up to the public to speak out, document abuse, and demand justice. This blog is not just a rant. It’s a warning—and a call for action.
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