Asmara - Post Report Question and Answers
Is high-speed home Internet access available? How long does it typically take to install it after arrival?
Check with your employer. My mission provides home internet access, and it's functional. However, not all do or are able to, and local internet plans are outrageously slow and expensive. - Apr 2021
The only way to get home high speed internet is if your employer is helping you. Our home has decent internet thanks to my job, and it came installed when I arrived (as I was taking over the house from a departing colleague.) However, decent is relative--it's good by local standards, but significantly slower than what I am used to in the United States. - Dec 2019
Internet is quite limited in Eritrea overall. Embassies and international organizations make arrangements to provide it for their offices, and some of them may make arrangements to provide connections at home as well. Our embassy-provided home internet connection is usually fine for web browsing, texting, and voice calls over Facetime, Skype, WhatsApp, etc. Video chat is more hit or miss; sometimes it works fine, other times not. Video streaming is more problematic. The internet quality varies with how much demand is put on our limited bandwidth at any given moment. Since there's no commercial provider to install internet at home, how quickly it's installed depends entirely on your sponsoring organization. We tell people to bring their own WiFi router from home in their luggage. - Feb 2019
Zero. None. Forget it. No local ISP. People get internet sometimes via work; it’s satellite and incredibly slow, like 8mbs - Sep 2018
Internet is virtually non-existent. There is no mobile data in the country. Most people do not have home internet, as it can cost the equivalent of $2,000 per month for something the speed of dial-up. Most diplomats and expats do not have internet at home. There are internet cafes spread out around the city, but they are considerably slow. For discussion of internet for U.S. Embassy personnel, reach out to post. - Dec 2016
Available for Embassy personnel and family members on the Embassy compound at no cost. Outside service is available for the home... don't know the cost. There are internet cafes, but I haven't tried them. - Aug 2007
