Internet and Phone in Addis

Practical Travel Info: Internet and Phone

Internet-The Weygoss charges 30 birr per hour for wireless internet and 75 cents Birr for using their computer for internet.  The internet is very slow, went out frequently, and was entirely unavailable for over 2 weeks during our stay.  We ended up inheriting a mobile hotspot (EVDO stick) from a family who was leaving and our internet experience was MUCH better.  I would HIGHLY recommend buying a hotspot if you will be in ET longer than a month.  You can buy them in ET for about $150 US and then have to pay a monthly fee and buy the phone cards to load Birr onto your account, or you can look into options in the US that might work here.

Phone-We brought a global phone (thank you A-M!) and then just had to buy a SIM card here (approx. $30 US I think).  We got ours at a phone kiosk in the lobby of the Getu building.  You can also buy phones here for a reasonable amount ($30-$50 US often).  You then need to buy Birr to load onto your phone and internet stick, we got the green cards which come in 100 Birr denominations.

We only used our phone for making local calls and for incoming local calls, all other calls we did through skype.  Once we started using the EVDO stick skype was great.  The regular Weygoss internet often dropped skype calls.

There are also internet cafes throughout Addis.