The teleco giant Safaricom has increased its coverage in Ethiopia by expanding its network coverage to now cover the cities of Awoday and Gondar.

The two cities now join the 8 cities of Dire Dawa, Hara, Haramaya, Bahir Dar, Adama, Bishoftu, Mojo and Debre Birhan. This brings the service provider’s services to 10 cities in Ethiopia, these are cities earmarked for a pilot program before launching a national rollout of the network by October next year. The pilot project is part of city-by-city rollout program that aims at connecting at least 25 cities by April 2023.

“The pilots in Awoday and Gondar signal the arrival of our National Launch in October 2022 as these are the last cities before the big event,” said Anwar Soussa, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Ethiopia.

Mr Soussa also thanked the Ethiopian authorities for supporting the initiative that will enable enable subscribers to use data services, make calls and send SMS to Safaricom Ethiopia and Ethio Telecom customers. Moreover, subscribers will be able to make international calls worldwide.

In addition, new customers will be able to actively register on the network, purchase airtime vouchers and devices as well as access dedicated customer support at the branded shops as well as all branded souks in the cities.

Customers in Awoday and Gondar cities will have an opportunity to choose their preferred numbers on Safaricom Ethiopia 07 prefix on the purchase of SIM cards which comes with a welcome offer of data, voice and SMS for one month.

Subscribers will also have an option of accessing customer care services from the call centre in Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Af-Somali, Tigrigna or English by dialing 700 to talk to the customer experience agents.