Following tender floated by Ethiopia’s telecom monopole, Ethio Telecom, the Japanese company Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. (NEC) has become the latest firm to participate in the bid.

NEC is said to be a new competitor to the bid that had already attracted 2 Chinese and 1 Swedish company. The companies are ZTE, Huawei and Ericsson. In the past few years, the 2 Chinese companies have dominated Ethio Telecom’s expansion projects.

According to Ethio Telecom’s CEO, Andualem Admassie (PhD), the enterprise’s latest floated expression of interest (EoI) has attracted around 10 companies. Nevertheless, out of these firms only 4 of them met the requirement set, he explained.

The companies that met the requirement are ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson and NEC, Andualem explained. Ethio Telecom was negotiating with 4 of the short listed companies as regards financial matters and agreement frameworks, he added.

In the coming one or two months, negotiation was going to be conducted with the four short-listed bidders on the Request for Proposal (RfP) in addition to methods to secure finance, the CEO said.

According to Andualem the speed of negotiation depends on the firm’s respective proposals and RfI (Request for Information) in which Ethio Telecom could demand further information from bidders for they have different kinds of network solutions on offer that can include lists of specific technology, quality and type.

Source: The Reporter