To meet this need, TSF was founded in 1998 and officially started its operations in the field with its first mission during the Kosovo War to offer satellite phone calls to the refugees fleeing the conflict.

In 2001 the first telecommunication centre was established in Afghanistan to help international NGOs active in the area with satellite internet communication systems.

Between 2003 and 2006 TSF opened two regional offices in Thailand and Nicaragua (the current regional office for the Americas opened in Mexico in 2016) and became a partner of two international clusters in humanitarian aid: the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and the Emergency Telecoms Cluster (ETC) founded by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and supervised by UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (currently ETC is led by the World Food Programme).

The members of the Board are: TSF’s main areas of intervention include disaster response, capacity building, education, bridging the digital divide and protection and assistance.

European Community Humanitarian Aid Office[6] Thales Foundation [7] PCCW Global [8] Capacity Media [9] Evox trading [10] - VoIP Carrier IT Cup [11] Communauté d'agglomération de Pau-Pyrénées Friends of Telecoms Without Borders [12] Speedcast[13]