Michael Pascazi last year was in New York desperately trying to reach his cousin in Italy, armed only with a cellular phone. His newborn son was to be baptized there, and he was trying to make the arrangements through his relatives.
“I have to call another cousin to get her and she had to go to a pay phone to call me back,” he said. “It’s not so easy to call back and forth internationally on cell phones. There’s a lot of rules, and it’s expensive. I thought that was unusual and odd and not well known in this day and age in a global economy.”
That’s when the idea struck him. The fiber-optics company executive wanted to find a way to transport cellular signals more efficiently and cheaply across international waters. He focused on the Internet.
“This was a project that we fooled around with,” said Pascazi. “We focused on the Internet because of the low cost, and then we focused on cell-phone traffic because of the ubiquity.”
Recently, Pascazi’s new company, Cellcross Telecom Inc., announced a successful trial of the system. It permitted international wireless phone traffic to travel via the Internet between New York and Milan, Italy. This method allows a mobile-phone user to place a local call that travels to a public switched telephone network, where a patent-pending Internet Protocol box translates the signal and takes it overseas. The IP box then translates the call back to the PSTN and dials through the cellular network.
The ingenious part of the system, according to Cellcross’ lawyers, is that both wireless networks and IP networks operate on the same physics principles, which will allow Cellcross to move mobile-phone traffic at little cost. Both wireless networks and IP networks have to correct bouncing and delayed signals from the transmitter to the receiver. When a wireless signal enters the Cellcross IP box and comes out the other side, the signal is scrambled, but the cellular network puts its hardware to work to fix the signal, said Pascazi.
“We have chosen a transport method, which is the least expensive you can get, and chosen to use systems that others have built and are obligated to maintain at no additional cost,” he said. “We’ll be riding on all of these coattails for little money, which gives us a large margin.”
The Cellcross chairman is now waiting for the company’s first round of institutional funding. Once that closes, Pascazi and company co-founder Frank Zarzeka plan to deploy larger scale networks between a few key points, including Europe, the Far East and South America.
The idea has garnered interest from large corporations that spend vast amounts of money on international wireless phone bills, said Pascazi. A few organizations plan to beta test the service between the United States, Europe and the Caribbean.
“All the Jerry Maguires on their cell phones look real glamorous when they’re calling Rome, but if you have a lot of Jerry Maguires, it’s chewing up IT costs,” said Pascazi.
Cellcross is working to set up a Web site within a month that will allow mobile-phone users to sign up for the service with a credit card. Users then would receive an access number and a PIN code to access the service. Users are then only charged for a local wireless call. The company is working on ESN recognition so that the service recognizes the caller each time and the user doesn’t have to enter a PIN code.
Pascazi also wants to test interest from mobile-phone providers around the world. He believes carriers would benefit through a partnership with Cellcross since such a service could drive wireless subscriptions as well as revenue streams.
The other niche market possibilities seem endless. Rental cars across the world could give their customers Cellcross fliers. Supermarket chains could offer the service at checkouts and receive a cut of the revenue. Or kids traveling to Europe for summer camps can stay in touch with their parents, said Pascazi.
“The marketing potential is huge,” he said.
