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ethio-telecom announced that all telecommunications lines to Mekelle’s main site in Tigray have been cut. This was revealed in a press conference that Ethio-telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamiru gave on December 10, 2020 at the Skylight Hotel.
According to Frehiwot, the telecommunications infrastructure lines linking Mekelle with Wukro, Ab’ala, AbiyAdi, Maichew-Kurkuftu, Maichew-Mehoni, as well as Shire and Shiraro have been cut.
According to the director general, this became known only after a team of ethio-telecom experts traveled to Mekelle following the military control of the city. He noted that previous efforts to identify the causes of the total blackout of telecommunications services in the Tigray region since November 4 were futile, as all means of verification did not direct experts towards solving problems successfully.
For example, Frehiwot explained, experts who traveled to Mekelle managed to locate cuts 46 kilometers from Wukro but could not say if there are other places where the lines were cut beyond that distance.
It concluded that this was done intentionally by perpetrators who wanted to disrupt telecommunications services in the region to launch an attack against the Northern Command of the National Defense Forces located in Tigray.
It reproduced CCTV footage showing people in Tigray Special Forces uniforms entering ethio telecom’s Mekelle Core Center facilities to finally expel the resident guards. The video also shows people in the same uniform pushing a man (who, according to Frehiwot, is the guard) and letting three other people turn off the power switches.
The CEO stated that the Mekelle and Shire hub sites remain intact, except for damaged lines connecting these sites to base transceiver stations (BTS) that supply end-user networks.
After learning that the network had been disrupted in Tigray through an automatic SMS notification at 12:37 am on the morning of November 4, 2020, he explained, ethio telecom experts and managers contacted and met. at their headquarters at 03:07 am to troubleshoot and restore services. But they were unable to access Mekelle’s main site or its employees, who could have communicated with them via satellite phones during normal hours, Frehiwot said.
“Experts at the central site would notify the national operations center when such problems occur,” he said.
In subsequent government messages, ethio telecom learned of the war that broke out in Tigray following an attack by the Tigray Special Forces on the Northern Command.
Frehiwot said the physical infrastructure in the Tigray region (North Region, as classified by ethio telecom), including power lines, were running smoothly and power supply lines were redundant, including generators, batteries and infrared service providers from low capacity, they could have helped run for hours. in times of power outages. The central site also had various protection systems for the transmission lines.
“We didn’t know about anything until we traveled and checked what happened on the ground,” he revealed. He also said that the headquarters could not even access its security cameras at the Mekelle Core Site.
It also revealed that within the first 14 days since the war broke out, 39.8 billion cyberattacks were attempted against various government institutions and media outlets.
The cyberattacks were interrupted denial of service (DDOS) and targeted unauthorized access to government systems and sites, educational systems and sites, Ethio telecommunications systems and infrastructure, media systems and sites, as well as financial sites and systems. .
But measures such as revoking the access of some experts, as well as other unspecified precautionary actions helped control the risks, which according to Frehiwot could have been devastating.
While the executive director was not sure when service will be fully restored in the Tigray region, she said efforts are being made to maintain the damaged lines. So far, partial services have been resumed in Dansha, Humera, Mai-Kadra, Turkan, Mai-Tsebri and Korem, while the networks in Alamata are fully restored.
The main obstacles to restoration are said to be challenges such as power outages, transmission outages, and problems communicating with staff. To successfully complete this restoration work, ethio telecom is working with the Ethiopian Electric Utility, the security apparatus and the interim administration of the Tigray region.
