Yemen Telecom Interconnect & Wholesale Reset: Commercial Rules That Prevent Disputes

Why interconnect becomes a growth bottleneck

Retail growth is fragile when wholesale foundations are unstable. Interconnect and wholesale disputes typically manifest as:

• delayed settlements and cash stress,

• degraded service quality at network boundaries,

• disputes over measurement, routing, and pricing,

• escalation into regulators and courts,

• and long-lived commercial mistrust.

“Interconnect disputes are never about minutes. They’re about governance.”

A Yemen telecom post‑peace environment will require renewed commercial alignment: clear reference terms, accurate measurement, predictable settlements, and dispute mechanisms that prevent day-to-day operations from becoming negotiation theatre.

Executive summary (what to fix first)

1. Define a clean interconnect operating model: reference terms, measurement standard, settlement cadence, and escalation ladder.

2. Implement reconciliation discipline with auditable data: traffic reports, variance thresholds, and issue closure timelines.

3. Separate technical issues from commercial issues: fault management on one track; billing/settlement on another.

4. Publish a wholesale “rules of engagement” to reduce ambiguity and limit opportunistic disputes.

“You cannot scale retail if wholesale is a courtroom.”

The critical decision: Do you want relationships—or recurring disputes?

Operators often treat interconnect as a transaction. In volatile environments, that approach fails. Interconnect must be treated like a managed partnership with defined rules.

There are four building blocks to stabilise interconnect:

1. Commercial terms (rates, charging intervals, service scope)

2. Measurement (how traffic is counted and validated)

3. Settlement (how and when payments happen)

4. Dispute handling (how issues are raised, proven, and closed)

Weakness in any one creates persistent conflict.

Step 1 (Weeks 1–2): Establish “reference terms” and make ambiguity expensive

Start with a clear, written interconnect reference pack that includes:

• Services covered (voice, SMS, data/termination, transit, signaling)

• Points of interconnect (PoIs), capacity responsibilities, and redundancy expectations

• Charging unit (per minute, per second, per message), rounding rules, and time windows

• Service levels at the boundary (availability, packet loss, call completion expectations)

• Fraud and abuse clauses (grey routes, artificial traffic inflation signals, suspicious patterns)

• Change control process (technical and commercial changes are logged and agreed)

Your goal is not to win a legal argument. Your goal is to remove ambiguity, because ambiguity becomes leverage.

“If terms are unclear, the strongest party sets the rules in practice.”

Step 2 (Weeks 2–4): Standardise measurement and reconciliation so you can settle without drama

Interconnect breaks when each operator trusts only their own counters.

A practical interconnect measurement standard requires:

• agreed reporting windows (daily for operational, monthly for settlement),

• defined counter sources (switch logs, mediation systems, clearinghouse data),

• variance thresholds that trigger investigation (e.g., >X% mismatch),

• evidence expectations for disputes (which logs count as proof),

• closure timelines (no open disputes that live forever).

“Reconciliation is a product: if it’s unreliable, your cashflow is unreliable.”

The 3-layer reconciliation model (recommended)

• Layer 1: Operational health (daily/weekly)call completion trends, signaling anomalies, congestion indicators, sudden traffic shifts

• Layer 2: Billing integrity (weekly)rated vs billed alignment for wholesale products; dispute queue aging

• Layer 3: Settlement integrity (monthly)final signed traffic statement; payment execution; balance carry-over rules

Step 3 (Weeks 3–6): Implement a dispute protocol that prevents escalation cycles

Most interconnect disputes escalate because there is no shared process for “how we disagree.”

A robust dispute protocol includes:

• a single intake channel (no informal escalation paths),

• categorisation (technical fault vs billing vs fraud suspicion),

• evidence requirements,

• a fixed timeline for response and closure,

• a “without prejudice” settlement option while disputes are investigated (to protect cash stability),

• and executive escalation only after documented steps.

“A dispute process is the firewall between operational reality and commercial conflict.”

Step 4 (Weeks 4–8): Protect service quality at the boundary

Interconnect is not only commercial. Poor boundary quality leads to retail churn and enterprise dissatisfaction.

Practical boundary actions:

• capacity monitoring at PoIs (avoid “silent congestion”)

• redundancy planning (even minimal redundancy prevents repeated crises)

• joint fault testing routines (a monthly interconnect test window)

• shared incident communications for cross-network outages

The CEO/CFO KPI set for interconnect stability

Use a small set of metrics that reveal whether the wholesale foundation is stabilising:

Commercial stability

• Settlement timeliness (% paid on time)

• Dispute volume (count) and dispute aging (days open)

• Net settlement exposure (outstanding balance vs threshold)

Measurement integrity

• Traffic variance (% mismatch) by service type

• of variance breaches above threshold

• Time to close variance investigations

Boundary service quality

• Call completion rate trends at interconnect boundary

• Congestion incidents at PoIs (count and duration)

• Repeat faults by PoI

“If you don’t measure interconnect like a managed service, you’ll manage it like an argument.”

Common failure modes (avoid these)

• No single reference pack: each contract becomes bespoke and dispute-prone

• Measurement by assertion: “our counters are right” is not a process

• Settlements tied up in unresolved disputes: cashflow becomes hostage

• Technical and commercial issues mixed together: disputes never close

• No fraud clause discipline: suspicious traffic patterns become a permanent fight

What “good” looks like by Day 90

• Reference terms are standardised and accepted

• Reconciliation runs on an agreed schedule with variance thresholds

• Disputes close predictably (with aging visible to executives)

• PoI capacity and fault management is treated as an operational discipline

• Wholesale stops being a recurring executive crisis