ADDIS ABABA: With the rise in the number of mobile subscriptions in Ethiopia so has the number of unsolicited text messages. Reports here indicate that the opposition parties are using mobile phone services to send SMS to customers in an effort to push their agenda, and residents are not happy. “We would like to see this stop. I am all for the opposition and democracy, but there is no place for this on my phone," Yussif, a mobile phone seller in the capital Addis Ababa told Bikyamasr.com on Monday as frustration was growing across the country. The ministry of communications has responded by calling on telecommunications and mobile phone service providers to ensure that there is not an overwhelming number of SMS going out to customers in order to speed up service and ensure there are no outages in services across the country. It comes on the heels of worries of censorship of Ethiopia's Internet services. Ethiopia is among the bottom five countries in a new report published by the World Wide Web Foundation's Web Index listing. The study ranked a total of 61 countries on the number of individuals online as well as the amount of useful online content available to web users. It also took into account the economic, political and social impact the Internet has had on countries. For Ethiopia, this is minimal, at best, the report suggested. The survey reported that in Ethiopia, as in much of Africa, the Internet remained a luxury, with less than half of the populations being connected on a daily basis. 30 percent of the countries covered by the survey faced severe to moderate government restrictions on web access and such restrictions could be the single most significant challenge to the future of the web the report explained. Despite growing its local telecom sector in recent years, overall Internet penetration in Ethiopia remains small, and this has resulted in those going online likely to look toward English sources for entertainment and news.
