Komikas

Komikas

The headquarters of Komikas Ent in Rockrsea.
Type	Worker cooperative
Industry	Telecommunications
Predecessor	Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon Tavakalo Fjarskipti
Founded	September 18, 1896 (1896-09-18) (as Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon) November 10, 1950 (1950-11-10) (as Fjarskipti) December 30, 1953 (1953-12-30) (as Tavakalo) March 3, 1969 (1969-03-03) (as Fjarskipti, a private company) March 4, 1992 (1992-03-04) (as Tavakalo, a private company) July 30, 2003 (2003-07-30) (as Komikas)
Founder	Torstein Koss
Headquarters	Rockrsea, Entropan Hafnir, Reykanes
Number of locations	8,300
Area served	Entropan Reykanes
Key people	Gréta Fazekas (chair of Komikas Ent) Dante Klængsson (chair of Komikas Rey)
Products	Fixed line telephony Mobile telephony Broadband internet Fibre-optic communication Digital television IT and network services Telecommunications equipment
Revenue	QB₵18.6 billion (2023)
Operating income	QB₵4.3 billion (2023)
Net income	QB₵3.3 billion (2023)
Number of employees	c. 43,000 (2023)
Divisions	Komikas Ent Komikas Rey
Website	komikas.org

Komikas is a telecommunications holding company headquartered both in Rockrsea, Entropan, and in Hafnir, Reykanes. The organisation primarily has operations in Entropan and Reykanes, operating with a dual-headquarter structure with organisational independence for its two primary branches, Komikas Ent and Komikas Rey, providing fixed-line, broadband, mobile, and IT services throughout the two countries.

Komikas' origins date back to the founding in 1896 of Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon, a public company operating staffed telephone kiosks in Rockrsea, expanding in 1900 to Hafnir in the Principality of Reykanes, developed a nationwide communications network in Entropan and parts of Reykanes in the following decades. During the Reykani Revolution of 1949, the company drew controversy for cutting communications to areas controlled by communist or democratic revolutionaries, with the destruction of communication links leading to declining profits and eventual nationalisation by the post-war Entropanian government in 1953, with the networks previously operated by the company in Reykanes being operated by the newly formed Reykani Socialist Republic, under the Fjarskipti. Following the fall of the Reykani Socialist Republic, the networks remained nationalised until their privatisation in 1969. In 1990, the nationalised Tavakalo merged with Fjarskipti, with Tavakalo itself being privatised in 1993.

In 2014, following financial difficulties, the Entropanian government offered financial assistance to the company on the condition that the company was socialised, to which it obliged, transforming into a worker cooperative.

History

Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon

Main article: Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon

Under the Corporate Form Act 1854, Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon (LT) was founded by Torstein Koss in 1896 as a public corporate -- a form in which, in exchange for the provision of utilities, the Treasury's finances would act as collateral should the company default on its debts or be unable to meet maintenance costs. The company, founded in Rockrsea, obtained a licence from the city council to build fourteen telephone kiosks, with Koss' own art noveau design, on publicly owned land. With the success of these kiosks being made evident, the company looked to obtain licences from several council authorities for the creation of several dozen more, which it failed to get, following opposition from the city council of Rockrsea.

The first telephone kiosk to open in Hafnir.

For expansion, therefore, Koss looked to the colonial possession of Reykanes, which, he realised, did not have the same laws regarding town planning as did cities in Entropan. He appealed to the Office for the Reykani Affairs (RUI) a plan for LT to create ten kiosks over the next five years in Hafnir, alongside a prototype telephony service to be offered to local businesses and government buildings. The RUI accepted the plan, on the condition that it would have the ability to direct the company on exactly which organisations the telephony service was offered to. The plan for a telephony service materialised as a subscription service, wherein customers rented their telephones from the company, together with the house wiring, and the wiring connecting the house to the local network at the distribution point, which was generally located at the top of a nearby telegraph pole.

As the service in Hafnir saw success in connecting colonial businesses, LT expanded, reaching over 2,000 employees by 1912, and being contracted by the Entropanian government to build a similar system in Rockrsea, extending the General Telephone Company's existing system to cover the entire city; with a guaranteed 50 per cent contribution by the government towards any capital costs incurred in creating the system, and a maximum pricing for the subscription service at ƒ150 (₵139) per annum. In June 1915, the first segment of this system was complete, with the four central wards of the city being complete, but the government's maximum pricing guarantee meant that the creation of the rest of the system was operated by LT at a loss, causing the government's capital cost guarantee to increase to 70 per cent, allowing the entire city's network to be completed by 1925.

Following the completion of the Rockr network, LT put forward a plan for the creation of an analogous local network for Höfðanátfari in Reykanes to be funded, again, by the Entropanian Government, but the plan was rejected due to the Government's presumption against development in Reykanes without analogous infrastructure existing in the nine main Entropanian urban centres. As such, the company developed the network alone, with it being completed in July 1929.

In 1931, the company was contracted again by the Entropanian Government, to build a network in Mogyoróska, which it failed to complete past the first leg (the two inner wards of the city) due to financial difficulties in the maintenance of the Rockr, Hafnir, and Höfðanátfari networks without direct assistance from the government. LT appealed for continuous government funding of at least twelve per cent of the administrative costs of running these networks, but was denied, meaning that it could not expand to other cities -- with the Mogyoróska, Veli, and Holan networks being delivered by Telephony Entropan.

LT slowly expanded in the following decade, growing from around 2,300 employees to 2,650 by 1941. In 1942, an earthquake in Höfðanátfari caused the destruction of major sections of the company's network in the city. This caused LT to seek assistance from the Entropanian Government, which it received, on the condition that it would prioritise improving the service to governmental buildings rather than on rebuilding the network as a whole -- with repairs fully complete by 1947, due to this term. This had the effect of increasing resistance from the local branch of the company, LT Höfðanátfari, due to the attachment of the company at large to colonial structures, and its service of the Entropanian government.

Role in the Reykani Revolution of 1949

Ledelsesmessig Telekommunikasjon played an infamous role in the Entropanian military campaign during the Reykani Revolution of 1949. While there are conflicting sources as to whether LT carried out its actions as a result of governmental pressure or of its own accord, the company publicly cut power lines to areas of Hafnir and Höfðanátfari that were not directly aligned with the Entropanian side of the war, distributing leaflets to affected houses encouraging them to "renounce affiliation with the separatists, and join the legitimate government". Overall, LT cut or otherwise destroyed nearly half of its entire telephone network during the war. During the war, protests were held outside the company's headquarters in Rockrsea, and popular pressure is widely believed to be the reasoning behind the nationalisation of the company in the aftermath of the war.

While in the modern age, the role which LT played in the Entropanian campaign has been disputed, subject to a number of conflicting accounts. The official stance of Komikas is neutrality on whether the company was coerced to cut its network, or whether it did so of its own accord, with a joint position by Komikas Ent and Komikas Rey that the company expresses "deep sorrow at the knowledge that no definitive answer will be found as to LT's involvement in the war, as such an answer would be vital to ensure justice for those who had been affected".