Get the latest announcements from MEF Members across the mobile ecosystem globally in this weekly review of member news…
Infobip, Digital Virgo and Bango among telemedia winners at the Future Digital Awards for Telco Innovation 2023
Juniper Research has announced the 2023 winners of the Future Digital Awards for Telco Innovation, which recognise the most innovative and disruptive telecommunications solutions operating across numerous areas including: CPaaS, mobile security, 5G and roaming.
And it has been a good night for telemedia companies such as Digital Virgo, Infobip and Bango, as well as many other tech companies and MNOs.
“Bango has a strong track record of innovation, pioneering browse-and-buy mobile payments, mobile app store payments, and telco bundling for digital subscription services. Our data-driven technology gives telcos and their merchant partners the insights that attract more paying customers, and we’re delighted to be recognised in this year’s Telco Innovation Awards.” – Anil Malhotra, Chief Marketing Officer & Co-founder, Bango
“We are proud to have been recognised as the Best Carrier Billing Solution 2023. Carrier Billing is definitely a key alternative payment method for mobile commerce. It offers a seamless and secure experience for users and it’s full of opportunities for all the players in the ecosystem. Our technological hub is the foundation of a powerful and sustainable monetisation ecosystem. By connecting telcos and merchants, we support our partners in addressing the evolving challenges of a market full of potential.” – Guillaume Briche, CEO at Digital Virgo.
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TSG Global Receives ISO 27001 Certification for Security Management
TSG Global announced it has completed the requirements to achieve ISO 27001 certification. The ISO 27001:2013 certification demonstrates TSG Global’s commitment to offering the highest level of compliancy, privacy, information security and identity management for its customers. The ISO 27001:2013 certification process included a thorough review of TSG Global’s documentation, management responsibility, internal audits, continual improvement and preventative actions.
“While going through ISO 27001:2013 certification was an extensive process, we felt it was vitally important for our clients, colleagues and partners to be confident that their data is completely safe and secure with us,” said Noah Rafalko, TSG Global CEO.
“Achieving ISO 27001 certification confirms that our policies and controls meet the requirements to protect customer data at the highest degree,” Rafalko said.
“After securing SOC 2 Type 1 & Type 2 attestation, we went a step higher and accomplished this rare certification to enhance TSG’s credibility and reinforce our undying commitment to compliance and security.”
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A day in the life of Charles Upchurch, chief executive, Global Message Services
While coming to terms with the culture shock remote working inflicted when it was forced on him in 2020, Charles Upchurch had beautiful Swiss scenery to gaze upon during his daily eight-kilometre walks.
“It took some getting used to, but one thing that I did do during that time was take a break at lunch and walk around the lake where we live,” the chief executive of Global Message Services (GMS) says. That, he says, was vital for his mental and physical wellbeing and is a practice that he continues today.
Upchurch is a Swiss citizen, but despite living in Europe for 30 years he is yet to shake off his noticeable American accent.
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, which he describes as a “wonderful place”, Upchurch happily discusses his upbringing, and how a boy from the America’s South end up living by a Swiss lake.
“When I got out of university in the US in 1977, I took off travelling around the world,” he says. “I found the oil industry and saw that it could pay for my travelling. So I worked around the world and was living in the Caribbean.”
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Mobile Ecosystem Forum foresees IoT security and sustainability standards in 2023
While 2022 brought an end to lockdowns and a return to normalcy, it has also proved to be a challenging year, with inflation inhibiting market growth.
Will this year be better? What will it hold for the mobile industry? I asked members of the Board of Directors at Mobile Ecosystem Forum to share their thoughts on the mobile industry in 2023. These are their predictions.
For Dawood Ghalaieny, CEO of Zariot, the increasing number and complexity of Internet of Things devices — and the amount of sensitive data they collect and transmit — means security is a critical concern. Ensuring the security of IoT systems is essential both for protecting the privacy and safety of individuals and organizations and for maintaining the integrity and reliability of critical infrastructure.
“This will make it more difficult for businesses to enter the IoT market and existing market players will need to be ready to develop stricter IoT security standards in response to this legislation,” Ghalaieny said. “Rather than simply pushing new products out to market, manufacturers will need to address security issues by embedding measures such as encryption, authentication, access control and vulnerability management into their IoT devices.”
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Juniper Research: CPaaS Market to Reach $29 Billion Globally by 2025, with Growth Driven by SME Sector
A new study from Juniper Research has found the value of the CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service) market will reach $29 billion globally by 2025; rising from $16 billion in 2022.
To capitalise on this substantial growth of 80% over the next three years, the report, CPaaS: Market Outlook, Emerging Opportunities & Forecasts 2023-2027, urges CPaaS vendors to focus on the development of managed services over their platforms. These services must enable the creation and management of rich media content over channels such as OTT business messaging, email and social media.
As markets become increasingly saturated with CPaaS service provision, CPaaS vendors must expand deeper into the SME (Small-to-Medium Enterprise) sector. In addition, the report predicts CPaaS vendors will further focus on the provision of value-added features that enable platform users to fully maximise the benefits of rich media channels though the inclusion of tools, including workflow builders and AI-based chatbot solutions.
Research author Sam Barker commented: “CPaaS vendors now compete on the capabilities of managed services to attract SMEs. As many of these smaller enterprises lack in-house development facilities, they will choose the CPaaS platform that provides the most comprehensive managed services for rich media channels.”
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Rakuten adds features to Viber
RAKUTEN Group Inc. announced it launched two new features of its Viber product in a bid to develop the messaging app into a one-stop-shop platform this year.
According to Rakuten Viber Chief Revenue Officer Cristina Constandache, their ambition is to help brands build awareness, generate interest, drive conversion down to taking care of the users and the after-sales care.
“Superapp is not a concept that is foreign to the Philippine market,” Constandache said during a dinner the firm hosted for reporters last Thursday.
“However, when it comes to Viber, what it means is that we want to maximize our utility and spending space in order to become a single gateway to manifold services, wherein users can do everything that they want or as many things as they want within one app—which happens to be the Viber—anything from ordering food, texting, paying bills, shopping. In a nut shell: minimum stats with a maximum value,” she added. Constandache cited studies that showed 71 percent of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and 82 percent of organizations plan to implement a strategy to bring better value to customer through services. With users and businesses in mind, Viber’s updates provide a better customer experience and brand engagement.
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Mavenir debuts fixed wireless access solution
Mavenir, a network software provider building the future of networks with cloud-native software that runs on any cloud, has announced the availability of its Fixed Wireless Access solution (FWA) combining Mavenir’s Open Virtualised RAN, Converged Packet Core and OpenBeam portfolio of radio units.
This offering provides a competitive solution in a low-footprint deployment that leverages public and private cloud infrastructure. Mavenir’s FWA solution delivers high throughput, differentiated QoS control, geo-restriction, home-zoning, differentiated charging, advanced power savings, and many more features.
“Fixed Wireless Access using LTE or 5G radio formats provides much more stable performance than the 802.11-based links that are popular today. In my testing, a CBRS-based LTE link has only 0.1% packet loss compared with 8.5% for an 802.11-based FWA link,” says Mobile Experts’ Joe Madden, chief analyst. “Four years ago, higher packet loss may have been acceptable, but today’s work-from-home environment requires a very stable, reliable link for video conferencing.
For that reason, our forecasting anticipates a strong trend toward 3GPP technology in FWA, and Open RAN solutions will be popular due to their low cost.”
