Interview with Mike Mulica, CEO, Bridgeport Networks


For an end user Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) brings one number service. And that is probably about it. What else is in FMC for an end user?

From a subscriber perspective the single number is really in many ways a representation for all of their services following them onto different networks and depending on where they may find themselves. FMC brings a service level integration to the subscriber. So things like SMS and Instant Messaging become one. Such services for instance were developed originally for particular networks. But they now become available to the subscriber across whatever network they may be on at any given time. So service level integration is the key value proposition in FMC.

Can you point at one FMC related application that you find exciting?

One of the consumer applications that I am very excited about is something we have built along with Oberthur Card Systems a large SIM manufacturer based in France. It is called MobileSTICK. It resembles an iPod in that it has a USB interface with blast memory but it has a GSM SIM card embedded into the memory. This will be an additional SIM Card to the one you have in your existing GSM phone. You can go to a local retail outlet, buy a MobileSTICK and then call your operator to activate it. If you plug this MobileSTICK into the USB interface on a PC it will fire up a soft phone on a portal, which will then become your mobile telephone. If somebody calls your GSM mobile number the call will be routed over the Internet onto your PC. It will be fully authenticated by the SIM authentication and be provisioned in the same way as operators provision an existing mobile phone. This also become a launch pad for several other applications. One such application is MMS. If you plug in the MobileSTICK, all of the photos that are on your photo album on your PC can be dragged and dropped onto a buddy list on this softclient, which you can then send to your mobile contacts.

What is driving FMC at the carrier end?

Most mobile carriers today pay a high cost to maintain and operate their networks. IP networks, on the other hand, on which the internet was built upon, are much more cost effective to maintain. So moving to architectures that incorporate more and more of the internet technology is the strategy for most mobile carriers and along with that come additional capabilities that include fixed and mobile convergence so that the applications you are using on the broadband side also become available on the wireless side of the world. Integrating new and different applications bring an opportunity for additional top line revenue.

Convergence standards are yet to be defined. There are some efforts going on by various bodies in this direction. What will be impact of delay in standards in this segment of the market?

From a standards perspective there has been a lot of work in 3GPP, 3GPP2 and VoIP call continuity standards. And they are at a point where products are now being built against those standards. As internet technology enters the telecommunications world you will see things tilting a little bit towards the Internet paradigm where the first mover advantage is more important than standardization. In such an environment companies introduce products and try to create defacto standards that others would follow. Interoperability becomes more important than standardization. Speaking of interoperability BridgePort has been a leader in creating MobileIGNITE that is built around the concept of introducing technology to the FMC segment and is based on interoperability standards.

BridgePort Networks has a reseller agreement with Siemens. How is that marketing channel doing for you right now?

I would say that we have a very close and healthy relationship with Siemens. We are excited about their IMS. The interesting thing that I am finding is that from an IMS perspective fixed mobile convergence is probably the lead application. We feel we are in a great position to be able to add value to Siemens’ sales efforts in their IMS business.

How do you differentiate your offering from other startups like Kineto Wireless, Personasoft, Convergin and NewStep Networks?

I think the first line of differentiation is Edge Vs Core. Kineto is a vendor for UMA technology and a base station controller technology that interfaces into the existing circuit switched network. It is a solution that really is targeted at coverage. That does not change the economics with the application integration opportunities because it does not involve core network at all.

Personasoft and NewStep Networks are fairly similar. From an architectural standpoint, they come out of an enterprise PBX environment. And so from an architectural standpoint they are oriented a little bit towards the enterprise and Centrex service. I do not think either company interfaces with the mobile network into the core. As far as I understand neither have an interface into the HLR in a mobile network.

Convergin is a company that comes out of an IN background and I do not know a lot about them and we have not really seen them much. I believe they are an Israel based company and have been around for a while.

We sit exactly between IP network and the mobile network. We get better reception from the mobile carriers because we interact with their core network and do not make any changes to the existing circuit switched network. We have evolved very nicely within the IMS. So I think the uniqueness of Bridgeport is that we were purpose built for fixed and mobile convergence and the company did not come out of the legacy of the enterprise, the internet and the mobile network. It was a company purpose-built to be placed right in the center of the two network technologies.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the core versus edge approach to convergence?

Basically the edge approach is UMA and the core approach is SIP technologies evolving to IMS. The core approach implies moving to the IP technologies and the driver for that is top line revenue growth. On the other hand the edge approach does not deliver that top line revenue growth opportunity. So any edge solution is something that is short term in nature. One interesting example is that edge technology is basically a coverage opportunity. It is a cost saver because you do not have to build additional wireless towers since the backbone network that you would be using to deliver services in that scenario is the existing circuit switched network - one with very high operational cost. So the cost associated with delivering those new wireline minutes of usage that you have been able to capture from the wireless are at a level that does not compare to where the new basis of competition is for delivering voice services which is built on a VoIP that leverages IP economics. The edge basis does not therefore have the cost basis that can compete with the Internet-VoIP paradigm because they have all those backend costs of the circuit switch technology.

WiFi Cellular handover is not an application really. Yet vendors are integrating this capability within application servers. Do you think that is where this capability really belongs?

When IMS was initially specified they did not envision this kind of capability. It is a capability that sits at the application layer and I think it works very well at that layer and does not cause the IMS standard to have to be re-engineered in any way. This capability can also be added to many other applications and so I think it sits well where it is right now.

Will FMC be driven by arbitrage opportunities in the sort term, arbitrage opportunities created by things like dual mode handsets?

I think there is a large discussion around dual mode phones that can move between mobile networks and the internet and the economic arbitrage opportunity that exists as a result of that. We believe the real adoption will happen as a result of the applications that become available as a result of being able to combine the service layer of the two networks.