I recently had the opportunity to speak with Daniel Kurgan, CEO of BICS, about the company’s current strategy and his view of the opportunities and risks in the markets the company addresses. But first, a few words about what BICS is in case you aren’t following them. BICS provides interoperability and interconnect services to more than 800 communications service providers via its extended network and 120 points of presence. More than half of these customers focus on the mobile marketplace. The type of services BICS provides include mobile data carrier services in support of signaling, messaging and roaming, and it is currently ranked in the top three voice carriers worldwide.
We started our discussion with a look at the technology trends BICS is currently addressing. Data roaming for 4G is a top priority and has only been available within the last year. Since last summer, volumes have continued to increase by more than 50% month over month. Monetization as it relates to roaming continues to be a challenge; especially with downward pricing pressure due to legislation in the EU around this topic. With the introduction of 4G services in the U.S. and Latin America, these are new market opportunities for BICS.
Connected “Internet of Things” devices and the connected car will continue to increase requirements for roaming and signalling. Projections of 20 billion SIMs to be deployed in support of these devices, could open the opportunity for new forms of MVNOs to come into the market that don’t exist today. BICS still needs to determine if there is a fit for them in the IoT space, but this is certainly a priority topic for consideration.
Earlier this year, BICS announced the launch of a hosted RCS solution. Currently in a pilot phase, it seems the jury is still out on this topic. Some industry pundits think RCS is already dead and won’t pick up steam going forward. Although many customers seem to be considering the value of RCS, it appears to be in a “wait and see” topic at the moment.
Customer experience is something you can’t stop hearing about in telecom, but customer experience for wholesale services is something new. This is a high priority for BICS. It has seen customers switch providers due to pricing and then return because of unmet customer experience expectations. The worldwide experience BICS can bring to the table, along with KPIs and detailed statistics that can be provided, help them to differentiate on this topic.
Where are they innovating? Voice over LTE is one area. Roaming and interoperability for VoLTE are very complex topics. BICS is currently trialing international VoLTE roaming services with 10 operators globally, and offering a free trial to companies that would like to participate. Analytics and big data are a second area of innovation for BICS. SMART Webvision provides operators with tools to understand 2G, 3G, and 4G roaming performance at the subscriber level and to define subscriber-specific services based on this data.
What about areas for growth in the future? The over-the-top segment and ecosystem will provide opportunities for market expansion in the future. As interoperability requirements increase between network operators and OTTs, it will open new doors for BICS. “The OTTs are threats as much as opportunities,” said Kurgan. “Not all of the OTT traffic can be addressed by the individual network operators. As their traffic continues to grow they will need to move into scenarios where they also need support with interoperability.”
Daniel Kurgan was appointed CEO of BICS in March 2007 after being COO from July 2006. He started his career as contracts manager at SABCA, the largest Belgian aerospace company, subsidiary of French Group Dassault, where he negotiated and managed major industrial sales, subcontracting and purchase contracts with customers like Boeing, Airbus, Aerospatiale, Asian governments and suppliers like GEC Marconi, Litton.
Kurgan joined Belgacom’s carrier division at the start of the carrier’s commercial operations in January 1997, where he held several positions including international account manager, head of international relations and sales, sales director of domestic and international wholesale and VP international wholesale, in charge of sales and marketing, buying and LCR, and customer service and network. In 2005 Kurgan was VP commercial of BICS, and contributed to the spinoff of Belgacom’s international carrier business. He graduated from the Solvay Business School of the University of Brussels.
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