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From garage startup to Denmark’s wireless winner

Denmark is an advanced nation when it comes to mobile coverage. You’ll need to look far and wide to find mobile dead zones. Danes chat, stream, vlog and share. We’re a super-connected community that requires strong coverage. But it wasn’t always so.

It may sound like a startup cliché, but KM Telecom really was born in a garage. Our business adventure started exactly 20 years ago in Jutland. Back then, fax machines were a thing, and the first iPhone was still on the drawing board. Today, KM Telecom has replaced its humble garage with a corporate HQ in the city of Fredericia. But they’re still dedicated to ensuring Denmark enjoys great mobile coverage – a vision that according to CEO of KM Telecom, Michael Hermansen, fundamentally requires employing the right people.

The journey, marriage and super-connectivity 

As the CEO and founder of KM Telecom, Michael Hermansen has been on a journey for the past 20 years. He has seen how mobile habits have changed, requiring Danes to be constantly online.

KM Telecom has been shaped by this development, especially over the past 3-4 years where the major mobile market players in Denmark have experienced a need to expand their coverage, namely TDC, 3 and TT Netværk, which is a corporate merger between Telia and Telenor. KM Telecom has nurtured very special ties with these providers, who have all shared the same journey. “A marriage”, as Michael Hermansen describes it.

“We don’t define ourselves as suppliers. Our customers are partners, and we are ambitious on their behalf and constantly strive to help develop their business,” says Michael Hermansen, “A bit like with a marriage where both spouses seek to bring out the best in each other.”

Values – not talking points 

An ambitious approach has always been part of the corporate DNA at KM Telecom. And although the company now celebrates its 20th anniversary and has expanded greatly since its initial garage startup, the company’s roots and core business are the same.

“Showing integrity and honesty is important to us. Our customers often experience that we achieve our goals sooner than promised, simply because we never promise more than we can deliver,” says Michael Hermansen.

But customers are not the only ones who benefit from KM Telecom’s genuine and reliable approach. Honesty also guides the company internally, which brings us back to the question of the employees.

They are the ones who represent the company in the wider world and make up the core of the business. When setting foot in their corporate HQ in Fredericia, you quickly sense that honesty, respect and mutual recognition of individual strengths are important values. Not necessarily expressed values, but underlying values that are a living part of their culture, such as when technicians operating in the masts find smarter ways of doing things. Or when project managers and the CEO brainstorm together in search of ideas to be tested in the field. Regardless of whether you are the corporate owner or work in the warehouse, everyone has relevant input to offer, according to KM Telecom.

Secure connections make a difference

The many bright ideas are soon put into practice. That’s the advantage of being an owner-managed company. Decisions are made quickly and action is taken. This is important if a country like Denmark is to ensure fast upgrades of the national mobile coverage.

“We are far ahead in Denmark compared to countries south of the border where many places fax machines are still in use. Here in Denmark, we have decision-makers who constantly ensure that things improve, such as with the 5G networks, which we are currently helping to roll out,” says Michael Hermansen.

The 5G network helps provide lightning-fast mobile connection, cutting out delays and bottlenecks. This is also a technology KM Telecom is proud to help implement. With 20 years to their merit, the company is bursting with achievement. The stable and super-fast connections that help us in our everyday lives in Denmark are the pride and engineering lodestars of the company.

Few of us take the time to consider what a difference our modern connectivity makes: A secure mobile connection when we need to call the emergency services; strong connections that let us kill time on the train station platform – or help us keep in touch with our sweetheart 200 km away. Without such advanced mobile networks, the world would be a different place. But for KM Telecom, our mobile connectivity is the crown of their corporate success.