|
Mobile & Wireless
Fixed & Mobile connects the nomadic worker
Tailors home away from home wireless solutions
by Sean Buckley
For many company executives and contract workers, having a temporary
residence in another country is a constant reality. However, these
people often lack accessibility to mobile services that can stick
with them whether they are at home or away.
After observing these phenomena, Fixed & Mobile came up with a set of solutions that lets
service providers target the so-called ‘nomadic’ subscriber. To help its
service provider customers stay ahead of emerging market demands (i.e,
Asia Pacific, Central Europe and Africa) and facilitate mobile roaming
traffic for SMS message over SS7 and IP, Fixed & Mobile opted to deploy
Ulticom’s nSignia eSTP (Signaling Transfer Point). In the following
interview, Eric Barbier, managing director at Fixed and Mobile sat down
with Telecommunications Editor in Chief Sean Buckley to talk about the
company’s model and the growth of mobile services.
TM: Fixed & Mobile is focused on providing what it calls access to the
nomadic customer or one that lives a good deal of their time working in
other countries. What drove you to develop this model and how does it
work?
Barbier: This model came from a very simple observation of guest
workers’ habits and how they lack appropriate solutions from mobile
operators. For instance, in Europe, [we are] witnessing the popularity of
payphones and calling cards among African and east European foreign
workers revealed a desperate need for better tailored mobile solutions.
Our model was started with the service ‘Transfer To’ for credit transfers
between the Middle-East and Asia at first. For instance, a Filipino living
and working in Saudi Arabia can reload the prepaid account of his
brother in the Philippines directly via SMS. All the sender needs to do is
enter the amount and the destination number he wishes to recharge and
the receiver will instantly get the corresponding airtime credit directly on
his prepaid mobile account.
TM: While IP is certainly the future, the reality is today’s service
provider has a mixture of legacy and next-gen networking protocols and
services they have to support. How can carriers make sense of this
whole dual hybrid world?
Barbier: Carriers face a real challenge in choosing technologies that will
let them transition smoothly from a legacy infrastructure, often inflexible
but proven, to [a] next-gen infrastructure [in an] innovative and flexible
process. A successful transition will probably mean a ground work of
consolidation, convergence, especially in value-added services and
innovation.
In South-East Asia for instance, mobile operators have less legacy and
more newly built networks making it easier to handle this duality.
Security remains a major concern in new IP-based networks. Embracing
this hybrid world requires several phases for carriers and will roll out in
many years rather than as focussed event.
Mobile operators are not ready to upgrade their infrastructure just for
the technical challenge. Changing a working infrastructure can only be
justified with new services introduced.
TM: A big focus for Fixed & Mobile is on emerging markets, a market that
you point out has seen 50 percent of mobile subscriber growth in the world
with over 285 million new subscribers in 2006. How are the market
dynamics changing and what are is making it compelling to serve?
Barbier: Indeed, today emerging markets see their telecom industry
contributing with an average of 4 percent to their country’s GDP and over 60
million people draw part of their income from airtime reselling. For
instance, in India more than 70 percent of airtime distribution relies on retailers
and on-the-street resellers. In Nigeria it is estimated that over 600,000
people are engaged in airtime reselling; they are the so-called “Umbrella
People” because all they need is an umbrella and a mobile phone to start
business right away on the streets. The development of cell phones
allowed positive structural changes as well, especially in rural and remote
areas. Considering this exceptional growth, mobile operators can simply
not afford overlooking this market anymore; they need to address it with
the right solutions.
TM: Is it safe to say that emerging markets are one of your biggest
areas of growth?
Barbier: Emerging markets in Asia, central Europe and Africa are
definitely our major focus. We basically follow migration corridors and
remittance trends. Today, over 200 million migrants worldwide remit more
than US$300 billion. A service for international mobile top-up such as
Transfer To™ is precisely taking into account the economic and social
changes emerging countries face. These markets traditionally send a
high number of workers overseas who rely for a large part on mobile
services to remain connected to their home community. With our
solutions we focus on answering the three main reasons why foreigners
use mobile communications: relative’s greetings, family matters and
support (advice or financial).
TM: You offer three main services i.e. Transfer To, Call Me and SMS
Voucher. What are the biggest areas of growth out of three?
Barbier: These three solutions are meant to be a consistent package for
migrant subscribers whether they are foreign workers, expatriates or
travellers. Transfer To is a solution for reloading prepaid accounts from
abroad, Call Me enables a foreigner to have a second number from his
home country and Short Messaging Service (SMS) Voucher is an
international collect SMS service.
Transfer To is experiencing the highest growth as it enables transfers
of credit from as low as one dollar instantly via SMS. It comes as a
reliable solution for a foreigner to share his balance with his friends and
family and to support them with a fast and convenient service. Transfer
To is also the first step towards mobile remittance and money transfers
directly to mobile wallets.
TM: SMS continues to be a big seller. Do you see a continued evolution
and growth of SMS?
Barbier: The mobile messaging market is still growing rapidly and SMS
volumes continue to exceed expectations. SMS remains the cheapest,
quickest and easiest form of mobile to mobile communication. Even in
mature markets, SMS traffic is steadily growing and didn’t experience
any relevant setbacks. However, in those markets, usage of Mobile
Instant Messaging (MIM) grows together with the increased number of
smartphones and wireless Internet and might come as a threat to
mainstream SMS.
While other applications emerge, mobile operators still draw the highest
part of their data revenues from SMS, especially in emerging countries
experiencing fast mobile growth. In the Philippines for instance, over 400
million SMS are sent per day. (See:
Mobile Messaging at an innovation tipping point and
Viva SMS!
TM: Let’s switch to your network. You run a global SS7 and SIGTRAN IP
signaling network. How has that network evolved since you founded the
company?
Barbier: With its signalling network Fixed & Mobile enables the transport
of the signalling messages for roaming purposes, the delivery of short
messages and the charging instructions. This network is continuously
evolving with improvements on monitoring, performance and a complete
set of features such as SS7 and SIGTRAN connectivity (STP & SCCP),
roaming agreement management, IREG testing, SMS filtering, real-time
reporting and Customized Applications for Mobile network Enhanced Logic
(CAMEL) charging. Coverage is also expanding with over 550 networks in
over 200 countries and territories.
TM: How do you work with other operators?
Barbier: Our main value is bringing to mobile operators an international
network of other mobile operators and partners. We have direct
connections to carriers ensuring that through one single contact they
can have access to multiple markets and opportunities at an
international level. For instance, with Transfer To service, we provide
authentication, authorization, secure payment for airtime, multicurrency
support, full audit trails and settlement with international banks thereby
removing the credit risk for operators. Every time an operator joins our
network he will immediately benefit from our existing coverage,
connections and distribution channels.
TM: One of the vendor partners you work with is Ulticom. What role do
they play in your network and do you see them expanding there?
Barbier: Fixed & Mobile deployed Ulticom nSignia eSTP to expand its
network reach and facilitate the delivery of mobile roaming traffic and
SMS messages worldwide over SS7 and IP infrastructures. nSignia is an
innovative, highly reliable, and cost effective signaling solution for
transporting SS7 traffic over more flexible IP networks.
By working closely with Ulticom, Fixed & Mobile has deployed nSignia as a
signal transfer point (STP); its cooperation with Ulticom is expanding
together with its network of mobile operators. Ulticom will keep enabling
Fixed & Mobile to address opportunities quickly with a minimum
investment in new infrastructure.
|
