Industry internship report

1. Introduction
Western & Assosa Region Ethiotelecom is situated in the West of Ethiopia which is found at
Nekemte town 330km from Addis Ababa 430 from Adama. This region includes seven
departments, such as indirect channel, direct channel, fixed access network, operation and
maintenance, Business partner, finance and physical security and 12 shops in different areas.
This is final report for Electrical engineering in communication stream semester internship .The
internship was undertaken to finalize this semester industry internship for engineering students.
This specific internship was undertaken at Ethiotelecom western & Assosa region, where duties
were assigned providing the experience as a product specialist .Over the course of internship a
variety of activities were experienced, both technical and process related .This provide a range of
valuable job skills which would be able to applied in future position both with Ethiotelecom and
western& Assosa region in general.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

2. Background of Ethio telecom 2

The introduction of telecommunication in Ethiopia dates back to 1894.Ethiopia
Telecommunications Corporation is the oldest public telecommunications operator in Africa. In
those years, the technological scheme contributed to the Integration of the Ethiopian society
when the extensive open wire line system was laid out linking the capital with all the important
administrative cities of the country. After the end of the war against Italy, during which
telecommunication network was destroyed, Ethiopia re-organized the Telephone, Telegraph and
Postal services in 1941. In 1952 the Imperial Board of Telecommunications (IBTE) was
established by proclamation No. 131/52 in 1952. The Board had full financial and administrative
autonomy and was in charge of the provision and expansion of telecommunications services in
Ethiopia.
The Imperial Board of Telecommunications of Ethiopia, which became the Ethiopian
Telecommunications Authority in 1981, was placed in charge of both the operation and
regulation of telecommunication services in the wake of the market reforms. In 1996, the
Government established a separate regulatory body, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Agency
(ETA) by Proclamation 49/1996, and during the same year, by regulation 10/1996, the Council
of Ministers set up the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC).
Recently, the Ethiotelecom company has been organizational structured by 1 head quarter,2
zonal offices and 8 regional offices providing different services such as fixed telephone, mobile
telephone, internet, CDMA, etc through its offices .Western region is among 8 regional office
and plays vital role in ethiotelecom on behalf of it self.
2.1 Company mission and value
As a continuation of the last five-year plan and after concentrating its efforts on education, health
and agriculture, the Ethiopian government has decided to focus on the improvement of
telecommunication services, considering them as a key lever in the development of Ethiopia

Ethio telecom is born from this ambition of supporting the steady growth of our country. Ethio
Telecom wishes to implement state-of-the-art processes, to develop reliable network
infrastructures and to provide the best quality of services to Customers. This is the mission of
Ethiotelecom; that drives all Ethio telecoms actions.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

To ensure that EthioTelecom runs parallel with top telecom operators, the Ethiopian government
3
has reached an agreement with France Telecom, one of the worlds leader telecommunication
companies. This agreement will help ETHIO telecom to improve its management capability
through the transfer of world-renowned know-how and skills.
While meeting international standards, Ethio Telecom remains faithful to his values:

Ethio Telecom commit to understand, meet and exceed the telecommunications needs
and expectations of our country at large and of customers in particular
Ethio Telecom respect customers and recognize that their revenues allow to operate
Ethio Telecom recognize that the company employees are the most valuable asset and
want to create an efficient corporate management environment that allows them to
develop and grow
Ethio Telecom will commit to high-level job performance, customer service quality,
organizational excellence and continuous improvement in all areas
Ethio Telecom will stay motivated and encouraged to meet all the challenges that will
face
Ethio Telecom will make every effort to achieve a superior financial return
Ethio Telecom uphold ethical standards, being honest in all assignments
Ethio Telecom will hold employees accountable to all their stakeholders

2.2 Company Objectives, Services and products

In line with its ambitious mission, Ethio Telecom has ambitious goals:

being a customer centric company

offering the best quality of services
meeting world-class standards
building a financially sound company

To reach these goals, all Ethio telecom divisions will focus on:

developing and enhancing network and information system

ensuring easy access and coverage to the whole population

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

creating a strong brand

4
developing human resources management
implementing control standard processes
improving financial, sourcing and facilities processes

Ethio telecom offers a wide range of products and services tailored made for Enterprise
customers and non enterprise customers. Ethio telecom offer Fixed wire line and wireless
services, mobile services, Internet and Data services as well as 3G services like WCDMA and
CDMA through the newly deployed Next Generation Networks(NGN).

Owing to nationwide huge capacity Ethiotelecom provide Enterprise customers a reliable and
affordable Internet and data services which facilitate their business and increase their
productivity by connecting them to local and international partners

3.Management, Training and employee information

Ethiotelecom has different departments in different places. Here, at western region we
assigned to work in operation and maintenance department for all internship session.
This section covers all operation and maintenance case of western region. So that, it
consist of different working section. At the day we began intern to this region we
introduced with operation and maintenance manager and he assigned a supervisor for
us. On the next day, after we have introduced with our supervisor and he shown us
different working sections of this region and supervisor assigned us to work with their
coworkers.
We introduced to the supervisor and with other operation and maintenance worker for
two weeks first. After that, we assigned to see different western regional Ethiotelecom
equipments and how they are configured these includes RAN system, transmission
system, exchange, routers, PSTN, BSCs, BTSs, IP,VSAT and the like. To have detail
knowledge about this equipment the manual of some equipment was given us by pdf
and by hard copy/module/.After we have completed these duties we are assigned to
see all operation and maintenance section turn by turn. First turn RAN section, second
turn core section, third, fourth, fifth IP section, transmission section, payphone section
respectively. Finally we are assigned to see power section. For each section we are

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

assigned to work for more than two weeks.

5
Our supervisor has helped us to succeed in our assignments in a good manner. After
we encountered about a week one personal computer is given for us from his working
section. There are free internet access about 10Mbps and we have used for reading and
checking our account and such a like. Our supervisor guided us what we have to do
and what we havent do in our daily working at every working time and he took
attendance to follow us whether we present or not. We ask our coworkers if there is
unclear thing while we are on working.
The other responsibility we had during our internship is respecting working ethics like
arriving on time, cooperation with coworker, accepting and respecting daily duties
given by our supervisor and the like.
Western region has many workers in different departments. It is difficult to mention all
departments on this report because of its wideness but, let us mention the main
department of this region.
We were seen that by using the access privilege, the supervisor and other workers
connect to the NMS and monitor the hardware module and software module of
telecom equipment of every materials and every configuration in that company. They
also taught us how to follow the rules and procedures there and showed us how to
work on the NEs and NMS.

1.Operation and maintenance department

This department deals with all operation and maintenance of RAN, core networks,
transmission, exchange, PSTN, payphone, IP, VSAT and power equipments so that,
this department is back bone at this level.
2.Fixed access network department
Does the operation maintenance activities of copper cables and optical fibers/external
plant/.
3.Human resource management department
This department manages human power so that employee appraisal is conducted once
a year for employee and managers and also used two types of standardized forms i.e,
administrative and clerical, and management and professional performance evaluation

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

format respectively. Progress of employee performance is measured periodically,

6
provide feedback and support employees to achieve both quantitative and qualitative
targets.

From this work we developed many working skills like: Punctuality, Reliability, and
Independence in Work Communication Skills, Professionalism, Speed of Work, Accuracy,
Engagement, and Cooperation with colleagues, Technical skills, Organizational skills,
responsibility in the task-fulfillment

4. Specific job information

4.1 operation and maintenance department
After we arrived at our internship place we visited different Western regional Ethiotelecom
working sections and microwave towers used for this region. Additionally, we also seen RANS
(radio access network station)
4.1 .1 Radio Access network System (RANS) section
In this section we have seen different types of BTS, BSC different vendors/ZTE, Nokia, Ericsson/
equipments. These equipments play their own role for mobile communication. Let us discuss in short and
brief.
Base transceiver station (BTS):-
BTSs-houses the radio transceiver of the cell and handles the radio links protocols with the
mobile.
-connects to a number of mobile stations (MSs) and each MS establishes connection
through the user interface um where um is the ISDN U interface for mobile.
-A BTS is also connected to a BSC at through the Abis interface which transmits and receives
data. With four multiplexed channels of 16 kbps or with a 64 kbps channel. BSC is connected
to an MSC in the networking and switching layer using an interface A.

Broadly there are two mobile communication technologies this is categorized as CDMA and
GSM. Let us see in short.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

GSM:-Is global system for mobile where each channel is divided into timeslots and each
conversation uses one time slots. In GSM many conversation are multiplexed into a 7
single channel.
CDMA:-Is code division multiple accesses and all users share the same frequency all the
time. To pick out the signal of specific users this signal is modulated with a unique code
sequence.
To understand easily the architecture of GSM is as shown below. Remember that the
architecture of GSM and CDMA is similar.

In this section we have seen two BTSs.one BTSs operates at 900MHZ /used for coverage/ which
corresponds to outside Nekemte town for rural areas of nekemte town. The other BTS is operates
at 1800MHZ which is used for Nekemte town/highly populated/. These BTSs corresponds to
GSM. Similarly two CDMAs BTSs are found in under this section which operates at frequency
of 800MHZ and450 MHZ which is used to cover town and rural area of WR & Assosa
respectively.
Each part of the architecture plays his vital role. Let us see some of them
MSC:-Mobile switching center which is used for switch plus everything for mobile subscribers
like registration, authentication, handovers, call routing, connection to fixed networks.
HLR:-database of all users plus current location
VLR:-database of users plus roamers and catches the HLR.
EIR:-database of valid equipment.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

AuC:-database of users secret keys

Main function performed by the BTS
8
Formation of cells using appropriately directed antenna
Processing of signals
Amplification of signals to acceptable strength so that they can be transmitted without loss of data.
Channel coding and decoding (for example, coding voice into bits so that it can be transmitted at
13kbps and decoding received coded signals back to voice).
Frequency hoping so that multiple channels for various mobile stations can operate simultaneously
using different channel band frequencies

Base station controller (BSC)

In this room there are four racks/two BSCs/ which are used to control western& Assosa
region Ethiotelecom BTSs and it manages radio resources (channel set up, hand over) for one
or more BTSs.
Important functions performed by the BSC
Processing of signals
Controlling signals to the connected BTSs and control of handover of signals from one
BTS to another with in a BSS
Control of handover of the signals from BSC to MSC(Mobile switching center)
Mapping a signal of a channel at a given instant receives signals from a BTS at 16 kbps
through and interface to MSC at 16 kbps
Alternatively, may have to interface to a PSTN switching centre at 64 kbps through a
fixed line network
Reserving radio frequencies and frequency hoping(For example, multiple BTSs operate
simultaneously by using the different frequencies at a given instant)
Location registry for the MSs
Authentication, encryption ,and decryption of data
.

4.1.2 Transmission, access and transport section

The ethiotelecom objective is to produce high-quality voice, video, and data
Communication between any pair of desired locations, whether the distance between
locations is 1 or 10,000 km. The distance between the two locations determines the type

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

of transmission equipment used for setting up the connection. First, communication over
9
a distance on the order of a few meters, such as within a building, is done using metallic
wires, optical fibers or radio. Any routing of information within the building is done by
switch on the premises, a switch known as a private branch exchange (PBX).When the
distance is extended to a neighboring building or to span a distance within a village,
town, or city, the local telephone network is usually used. This entails making a
connection to the nearest switching exchange by a pair of copper wires or radio, routing
the initiating party to the desired receiving party, and completing the connection on the
recipients pair of copper wires, or radio, which are also connected to the nearest exchange.
The next stage of interconnection is intercity or long-distance, connections. The
contenders to fill this role are microwave radio, optical fiber, and satellite.
In addition to above, each transmission system is as shown below
1. Microwave
Microwave communication is the transmission of signals via radio using a series of microwave
towers. Microwave communication is known as a form of "line of sight" communication,
because there must be nothing obstructing the transmission of data between these towers for
signals to be properly sent and received. Additionally, we have seen different types of
microwave dishes directed to different microwave repeaters. This microwave repeater increases
the power gain which will be transmitted from BSC. So that, there are several microwave
repeaters available for this region.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

Fig 4.1
Figure 4.1 shows a simplified microwave link incorporating just one regenerative repeater and
10
two end terminal stations. The terminal stations house
switching equipment that connects the customers to the long-distance paths. In this illustration, a
large number of customer signals (around 2000) are multiplexed together into a single signal,
ready for transmission over the microwave link. The signal is converted to the microwave
frequency (around6 GHz) and transmitted over a path of typically 30 to 60 km from station A to
the receiving antenna at the repeater station. The repeater either (1) simply amplifies the signal
and sends it off on its journey using a different microwave frequency to minimize interference,
or (2) it completely regenerates the individual pulses of the bit stream before reconverting the
signal back to a microwave beam for onward transmission. Station B receives the microwave
signal, processes it, and unravels the individual channels ready for distribution to the appropriate
customers at this end user.
2. Fiber optics
Fiber-optic communication is now the dominant data & voice transmission method. However,
microwave communication equipment is still in use at many remote sites where fiber-optic
cabling cannot be economically installed.
At present backbone network is microwave transmission system, as telecommunication service is
becoming in Ethiopia. The existing back bone transmission system cannot meet the needs of the
people. Therefore ETC builted eight optic fiber lines through out the country; its main aim is to
resolve communication problem between country capital and states. Nekemte branch is one of
that and extended up to Asosa regions by branching to different western regional towns.

3. VSAT (Very small Aperture Terminal)

Two Stations on Earth want to communicate through radio broadcast but are too far away to use
conventional means. The two stations can use a satellite as a relay station for their
communication. One Earth Station sends a transmission to the satellite. This is called an
Uplink.The satellite Transponder converts the signal and sends it down to the second earth
station. This is called a Downlink.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

The Broadband VSAT is a satellite system especially applied to the remote areas of the country.
11
The country uses the Broadband VSAT network for the provision of triple play services for high
schools, universities, research centers, Woredas and Non Governmental organizations.

School Net: with the aim of providing similar standard education to high schools throughout the
nation.

WoredaNet: The WoredaNet Network has enabled woreda centers of the country with the
opportunity to use voice, data and multimedia services.

AgriNet: This AgriNet Network has a total of 35 VSAT stations which are agricultural
institutions connected with each other and the federal government for Internet service.

4. 1.3 Internet protocol (IP) and IT section

Ethio telecoms IP Network is constructed in such a way that it can provide NGN (including
GSM, Fixed NGN, CDMA, IP/Broadband Access Network services including Value Added
Services) at regional cities, major cities, sub cities, and towns.
IP network layers and their functions
1.Gateway layer: This layer deployed in four sites and contains routers mainly functions to
connect to an external network /internet.
2. Back bone layer: Totally 10 sets of BR (T8000), distributed to five cities and each city
deploys two sets of BR, full meshed connection. This layer is mainly responsible for service
traffic forwarding and high capacity communication facilities.
3. Core layer: This layer is mainly responsible for service traffic forwarding, convergence and
high capacity communication facilities.
4. Edge layer: Provides information exchange b/n the access and core network. It is an entry
point in to carrier/service provider core backbone networks and used for aggregation of core
switches
5. Access layer: Access layer is where broadband access devices and Ethio telecoms other
networks (GSM, CDMA, and FL-NGN) are connected.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

4.4. Core Network, Local Switch and MSAG Section

12

Core network: A core network is the central part of a telecommunication network that provides
various services to customers who are connected by the access network. One of the main
functions is to route telephone calls across the PSTN. Typically the term refers to the high
capacity communication facilities that connect primary nodes. Core/backbone network provides
paths for the exchange of information between different sub-networks

Core network includes three parts:-

1. Soft switch: A soft switch has revolutionized telecom industry. These days, a softswitch can
work with voice, fax and video, contributing much to the recent telecommunication revolution.
As a matter of fact, a softswitch is a virtual device/software that connects calls from one line to
another. Since this is a virtual tool, it is entirely managed via computer.

2.Media gate way: A Media Gateway acts as a translation unit between disparate
telecommunications networks such as PSTN; Next Generation Networks; 2G, 2.5G and 3G radio
access networks or PBX.As the Media Gateway connects different types of networks, one of its
main functions is to convert between the different transmission and coding techniques.

3. Public switching telephone (PSTN):-The basic service of PSTN refers to the basic call
connection functions provided by the switch, inter office call, local call, national toll call,
international toll call, tendem call and others.

MSAG:-MSAG (Multi-service Access Gateway), a reliable device of medium capacity and

carrier class rolled out by ZTE, mainly develops VOIP services and broadband data services over
the backbone network, and is primarily based on the accessing of ADSL or VDSL to realize the
voice and data services simultaneously. Also, it can access the corporate users like enterprises by
deploying the inner LAN to provide IP phone services.

Local switch:-Is the telephone exchange in the PSTN directly serving subscribers. This serves
includes dial tone, calling, features and additional digital and data services to subscribers using
the local loop.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

4.1.5 Pay phone and CPE section

13

CPE: - A customer premises equipment device (CPE device) refers to a telecommunications

hardware device located on the telecommunication customer's premises. This equipment might
include cable or satellite television set-top boxes, DSL or other broadband Internet routers, VoIP
base stations, telephone handsets, or other customized hardware. CPE equipment can be owned
by the customer or leased from the telecommunications company. CPE also includes the interior
wiring at the customer's location that is connected to a communication service.

Payphone:- payphone is a public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or a privacy

hood, with pre-payment by inserting money (usually coins), a credit or debit card, or a telephone
card.

Ethiotelecom facilitated the communication system as a form of payphone for rural, towns and
cities of Ethiopia. Here fixed telephone, GSM, CDMA can be considered. The quality of this
payphone is that; since it uses solar power it is very useful for rural areas of Ethiopia where
difficult to get AC power source. Now a days rural area of Ethiopia (kebele and wereda) uses
this wireless CDMA, GSM payphone and easily can access communication networks.

4.1.6 Power and environment section

This company uses generators, AC power sources from EEPCO, Solar power sources, and
battery. This redundant power supplies are used for sustainability of communication links in case
of faults on the other sources.

a.AC power system The AC power system uses 380v triple phase with five lines and 220v single
phase with three lines can be accessed and it uses 50Hz frequency.

b. Rectifiers in this case AC 220v input; DC-48 output. The function of floating charge,
averaging current, converting auto/manual. Also we see that the DC voltage output -48v to-53v
and equalize voltage -50v to 60v

Generally -48v DC power supply is adopted in the telecom equipments. Sometimes, there also
equipments that use +-24 or +-12v DC sources.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

During our internship period the responsibility given for us is covering all operaration and
14
maintenance department sections and we have successfully seen all these section accordingly
which is crucial for our stream.

We were in trouble when we are working with Ethio telecom in because of the knowledge
related the course called mobile communication and fiber optics. It is the basic for our related
work. Therefore, we were decided to read the manuals to be successful to our practice.

The other course we advanced while we on intern are Antenna system and design .it is also
the basic in some of antenna related like MSAG ,BTS ,BSCs and the like configurations The
other one is Electromagnetic wave and propagation is also the basic one for such alike
work, Every wave can move from one any type of antenna to another in the form of Radio
wave ,microwaves and fiber optics to transmissions and receiving

We identify ethio telecom is undertaking different projects to construct up-to-date

telecommunication technologies to provide world class telecom services to the society
and government bodies.
There is also can done a project how to solve the network complexity and to step up the
facility of Ethio telecom services.

5. Evaluation and critique

Today all of the worlds are becoming to one neighbor district through globalization and
technology development in high speed, if you need any things from this world there is a
competition beside of you. Therefore to become a competent of as such you have to know in
every directions around that you are focusing for .Internship is the basic knowledge full for every
students living in this globalized world. There is knowledge at every work industry the same as
that of at school, even if there is a problem with some industries to give you a chance for more
working accessibility intern students can get more knowledge more. So we are one of that!
We got more knowledge related to our field from this company and we also know the working
behavior, in general as we already explain it so far what we got from this intern. Any like
explained above problem can be solved by the Universities or collages internship committee or
other concerning parts for his trainees benefit to get productive human from this career, unless it

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG

 Industry internship report

is just merely losing a country resource and human mind. We extremely blame especially
15
electrical department Intern holder. We never ever visited whether we on working or not. Every
intern owner must have to follow and communicate to help his trainees at every time needed. As
such is so worthy!
Finally, since modern technologies are dynamic to go with recent technologies any education
should be supported by education tour for each related course. To do so, the university should
facilitate education trip in addition to internship.

5.1 Recommendation
Now we would like to recommend the internship to be improved as internship student from
what we face when we are on intern.
First of all the university must have facilitate the place of internship for his student
strictly that is favorable to follow them while on work. There was a problem with our
university concerning this in fact. Most of intern students are searching company by
themselves with some challenges we know.
The internship students must have followed in related by the University advisors at least
once per month. The problem we mentioned above favorable is here useful for our
advisors to perform this actions easily.
The internship student must be evaluated or have a report what they have been working
every months in the form of hard copy or through e-mail to university advisors. Also
there must be a neat communication between the Organization and University advisors to
do this type of evaluation.
Every help and supports are throughout the duration of internship placement is strictly
required from every department internship concerning body.

ASTU-ECE COMMUNICATION ENG