International Roaming With Somalia

Somalia's Somafone has deployed international roaming and SMS capabilities from Tecore Wireless Systems. As the political situation in Somalia continues to stabilize with the establishment of a new government, Tecore says that it expects the increase of visitors to Somalia to drive the need to provide reliable GSM roaming and data services.

We hope that the tourist market has improved since last year though. In an interview with The Economist last March, Somalia's Minister of Tourism, Jimale Osman commented "I'm sure tourists would leave Somalia alive and I'm hopeful they wouldn't be kidnapped," he says. "At least, we would try to make sure they were not kidnapped, although it can happen."

Somafone also deployed other advanced features, including Over the Air Activation (OTA), SMS to Email, Email to SMS, Email Notifications by SMS, Missed Call Notifications, Virtual Top-Up and Prepaid. The unique OTA feature allows any GSM subscriber from another network to roam on the Somafone network, utilizing their home network SIM card. The subscriber immediately receives a text message with a local Somafone mobile number upon the selection of the Somafone network, and can start receiving calls immediately without any operator intervention. The subscriber would simply need to purchase a prepaid voucher to top-up their OTA account in any denominations.

"We are excited about the OTA capability, because not only does it enable visitors to Somalia to immediately start receiving calls, but it also allows other network subscribers to select the Somafone network at any time to utilize our high quality network," said Hussein."

Posted to the site on 12th September 2005