The customer with two SIM cards has already diagnosed the problem. One network reaches one set of people. Another reaches somebody else. To make an ordinary telephone call, the customer carries the missing connection in a pocket. It is a small inconvenience with a large explanation: building a network and building a communications market are different jobs.
- Telcom’s Somaliland operation belonged to the early private telephone market.
- Its regional connections mattered as much as its local coverage.
- Agreements between rivals helped address the awkward business of calling across networks.
Telcom belongs to that story. Its supplied website, TelcomSomaliland.com, appears on its LinkedIn page. Historical accounts identify Telecom Somaliland as a regional operator linked to Telecom Somalia. Keep those names in view, because there is another company called Telesom. That final syllable matters. Telesom operates ZAAD, the mobile money service. Telcom’s own history is interesting enough without borrowing its neighbour’s wallet.
The demand was already there
Start with what failed first. The old public telephone infrastructure disintegrated with the collapse of Somalia’s central government in 1991. Families separated by migration still needed to speak. Businesses still needed to coordinate transactions. The disappearance of a provider had removed the service, while leaving the reason for buying it intact.
Private operators stepped into that opening. A University of Edinburgh thesis identifies Said O. Olow as the entrepreneur who established Telcom Somalia in 1994. It describes an early mobile service constrained by expensive technology: customers shared a handset at communication centres. Access came before individual ownership. That detail makes the early business easier to understand. The product was the conversation; possessing the device was a separate, costlier proposition.
The historical relationship extended north. A January 2012 media and telecoms guide describes Telecom Somaliland as Telecom Somalia’s sister company, with good connectivity between their mobile networks. It lists operations across several Somali cities. For the Somaliland customer, this relationship offered something practical: a regional telephone service with connections beyond its immediate market.
“We saw a huge gap in the market.”Abdullahi Mohammed Hussein, Telcom Somalia products and services manager, in historical BBC reporting
A price you could understand
What did connectivity cost? Reporting from Mogadishu in the mid-2000s described a market offering local landline calls within a monthly subscription of about $10, with international calls around 50 US cents a minute. These are historical market prices, rather than a current Telcom Somaliland offer. They convey the commercial proposition: make repeat communication affordable enough to become routine.
Historical Mogadishu landline market pricing, mid-2000s. Local calls included. A period snapshot.
The business model was recognisably telecommunications: collect payment for access and usage, then maintain the machinery that makes the next call possible. The wider Telcom Somalia business also participated alongside Hormuud and NationLink in Global Internet Company. A historical industry profile identifies that joint venture among the country’s internet providers. Rivals could compete for telephone customers while sharing an interest in internet access.
That arrangement suggests a useful distinction for anyone studying infrastructure businesses. Some capabilities help a company win customers. Others become more valuable when several companies can use them. Knowing which is which shapes both the service and the bill.
The work behind the signal
A March 2010 vacancy published under Telcom’s name offers a more intimate view of the Hargeisa operation. Applications went to U-Tell FZC. The job called for programming, databases and web applications, with experience in telecom billing, rating, mediation and customer management considered useful. The listing connects the company’s public-facing telephone business to the software that supports it.
There is something pleasingly ordinary about this document. Alongside the specialised signalling protocols sit documentation, testing and troubleshooting. Somebody has to record a customer correctly. Somebody has to turn usage into an accurate charge. The expertise behind connectivity includes patient office work, even when the visible symbol of the business is a mast.
The call that leaves your network
The next difficulty was compatibility. Historical descriptions of the market repeatedly mention trouble calling across operators, with customers using multiple SIMs to compensate. A network could function internally while remaining an awkward island. More subscribers on the same island did not automatically solve that problem.
Conceptual illustration: a working link makes each side more useful.
What changed the calculation? A Somalia investment-sector study attributes a late-2005 interconnection deal between Telcom Somalia, Hormuud and NationLink to competition from Somafone. It also records a July 2011 Somaliland agreement involving Telcom Somalia, Somtel International, NationLink, Soltelco and Africa Online. Commercial pressure helped bring rivals to the same table.
For customers, the attraction was straightforward: reaching another person without first matching their operator. For companies, interconnection introduced negotiations over the terms of access. The useful lesson is specific. When customers must buy a second product to work around your boundary, that boundary deserves attention.
Useful, and still vulnerable
Connectivity did not put operators beyond the reach of conflict. In September 2011, Al-Shabab ordered Telecom Somalia, NationLink and Dahabshiil to close operations in areas under its control. Contemporary humanitarian reporting described the order being rescinded days later, with continued operation tied to financial demands. A network’s economic usefulness offered no automatic protection against coercion.
This places a limit on the business lesson. Copying the pricing or the equipment would miss the operating conditions. Reliable power, physical access, workable agreements and the ability to keep staff and facilities functioning all affect whether a service reaches its customer. A low tariff cannot repair an interrupted connection.
Telcom’s place in the market is the early private operator’s place: restoring an essential service, serving ordinary users, and confronting the limits of a network built around its own subscribers. The reader can copy the discipline of finding necessary demand, reducing the cost of repeated use and negotiating connections that customers should not have to improvise. Begin with the person holding two SIM cards. The next product decision is already in their hand.