May 13, 2025 • 24 mins
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Cellular connectivity forms the backbone of the IoT revolution, but building truly global, reliable solutions has remained challenging—until now. FloLive is transforming how devices connect worldwide through a revolutionary distributed network architecture that addresses the fundamental limitations of traditional approaches.
Most IoT connectivity providers rely heavily on roaming agreements to extend coverage beyond their native footprint. FloLive has taken a fundamentally different path by building its entire technology stack in-house and distributing core network components globally. This "network of networks" approach allows devices to connect locally in different regions while providing customers with a unified management interface.
The benefits are profound and multifaceted. When devices connect to local networks, data can be processed regionally rather than traveling across continents, dramatically improving performance and addressing increasingly strict data sovereignty requirements. Network-based security provides protection for resource-constrained IoT devices by analyzing metadata in real-time to detect anomalous behavior. Meanwhile, the ability to seamlessly integrate satellite connectivity ensures devices can maintain connections even in the most remote locations.
What makes this approach particularly powerful is how it embraces rather than competes with local mobile network operators. By partnering with MNOs worldwide, FloLive augments their capabilities while ensuring compliance with local regulations. This collaborative strategy is opening doors for innovative applications across industries—from electricity meters in Europe to cleaning robots in Singapore, water irrigation systems across 120 countries, telematics solutions, video applications, and payment terminals.
The next frontier involves leveraging artificial intelligence to further enhance the platform. By combining data from multiple sources within their stack, FlowLive is building AI capabilities that will help customers optimize operations, predict network issues, and potentially reduce costs through automated recommendations.
Ready to transform your IoT connectivity strategy? FloLive primarily works through partnerships with mobile network operators, MVNOs, IoT service providers, and systems integrators, with sales teams available across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific regions to support your global IoT initiatives.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey everyone, diving into one of my favorite topics
the global IoT marketplace witha real innovator in the space at
FlowLive Nir, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm doing great.
Good morning, even Good to seeyou.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yes, good to see you as well, and we met at Mobile
World Congress.
Seems like an eternity ago, notjust a few months ago.
Like an eternity ago, not justa few months ago.
For the folks listening, tellus about Flow Live, how the
company was founded, yourservices and the journey that
you're on as CEO.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, so Flow Live basically is in the market for
the last eight years almost, andFlow Live was built and created
to solve one thing, and it isto allow companies from all
around the world to connecttheir things to the network
using cellular and satelliteconnectivity in a seamless way
(00:57):
where we take care of everythingneeded to do that.
In 2020, I joined FlowLive as aCEO coming from AT&T and we
started to reconstruct all thecomponents and basically for the
(01:22):
last four years, we are helpingcustomers to cross their IoT
global journey with FlowLive.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Fantastic, and talk about my favorite topic in the
network your network Maybedescribe the scale, the scope,
the reach of the Flow Livebasically cellular network, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So to do that, I think we need to explain a
little bit more about theapproach of Flow Live to solving
the global connectivity needs,because I think this is where we
are coming.
A little bit more about theapproach of Flowlife to solving
the global connectivity needs,because I think this is where we
are coming, a little bitdifferent than the traditional
approach in the market.
So if you look at thetraditional solutions in the
market coming from the big MNOsand many of the MDNOs of the IoT
(01:59):
connectivity domain, you wouldtypically see organizations that
have very strong and very goodsolutions in some regions of the
world.
If we talk about the MNOs, itis normally where they have
their own native footprint interms of radio access and
network coverage, and then theycover the rest of the world
(02:22):
using their roaming agreementsand some other capabilities
added to their roamingagreements to try to serve the
global connectivity needs of thecustomers.
From the get going, we thoughtthat doing that is OK for many
use cases, but it's not enoughfor some use cases and
definitely do not solve all theneeds of our customers.
(02:45):
If you look on customers, theylook for coverage anywhere in
the world.
They look for sustainableservice.
They look for performance andcompliance and security.
There are many differentaspects of the solution that
they need to have with their IoTconnectivity and we thought
that only relying on theseroaming agreements and with
(03:08):
centralized operation is notenough.
And what we built is somethingslightly different.
We decided to develop the entiretechnology required for the IoT
connectivity needs in-house.
We talk about the core network,the billing system, the
connectivity management platformand the SIM applet, the remote
(03:29):
SIM provisioning capabilities Toget them together as a single
solution sitting in the Cloud.
But then doing one more thingwith taking these network
components really the corenetwork and distributing the
core networks all around theworld and integrating with the
right MNOs in different regions.
(03:50):
Basically stitch together allthese subnetworks, if you may,
into one global network with asingle connectivity management
platform and billing on top ofit and with the ability to
switch and change and tune theprovider on the SIM card based
on the customer specific needs.
(04:12):
So, if you want what we've done, we built many different
networks around the world to getthem all together to a single
solution for our customers touse and this way, basically, you
really solve the customer'sproblems Because, while the
customer is getting one globalsolution that they can manage
with a single API, single UI, etcetera.
(04:33):
From a device perspective,devices are connected to local
networks in many differentregions, in many different parts
of the world, and that's, Ithink, the different approach
that we take from at least thelegacy solutions in the market.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Amazing.
So let's unpack that, becauseyou said a lot there and a
single global frictionlessnetwork is kind of an amazing
accomplishment.
How do you consider you knowyou solve the fragmentation
issue, but how do you thinkabout performance and
reliability and security andease of you know, provisioning
(05:08):
All the challenges that IoT hashad even today?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah.
So let's start with the lastpoint that you mentioned the
ease of operation.
Customers should get a servicewhere they do not need to
dictate up front to which partof the world the device will go
or should be connected.
They should basically embed theconnectivity capabilities, the
(05:34):
SIM card or the virtual profilewithin their devices in the
factory and they should be ableto send the devices anywhere in
the world.
Devices should connect and sendand receive data seamlessly.
That's the first thing to startwith and that's for the ease of
operation.
And then, no matter how manynetworks we use underneath and
(05:56):
how many different IMSIs andprofiles of different MNOs we
use underneath, customers shouldhave a single UI, single API,
single build to manage all thesethings.
So from an operationalperspective, it should be as
easy as that.
This is the first thing.
When we talk about performance,one of the things that impact
performance most is the factthat in many solutions, data
(06:20):
need to travel from one regionto the other region, sometimes
even between differentcontinents.
So, for example, the mainservers of the operators are,
let's say, in the US and thedevices are in Europe.
The data needs to go back andforth, or at least the metadata
needs to go back and forth, andthe fact that we are building
local networks in many differentregions allows devices to
(06:43):
basically terminate the datalocally and by that have
improved performance on averagearound the world.
So the de-aggregated,distributed network architecture
allows better performance justby allowing devices to connect
in region to local networks orto at least sub of the network
in the packet gateway, as wecall them.
(07:03):
That allows the performance tobe better on an average least
sub of the network in the packetgateway, as we call them.
That allows the performance tobe better on an average case all
around the world.
This is number one.
When you talk about compliance,basically the answer is more or
less the same.
We see two types of use casesfor customers.
If we try to do it very, veryroughly.
Ok, there are customers thatneed their data to be in region
(07:27):
anywhere in the world.
So, for example, they havemedical devices in Europe.
They need all the European datato stay in Europe, and the
medical devices in the US needto have all the data staying in
the US, et cetera.
But they still want a singleglobal operation.
So you need to have a servicethat allows customers to many
things globally on one hand, butterminate data locally, on the
(07:47):
other hand, which is right forperformance and also for
compliance.
So this is the second thingabout compliance.
And then the last thing that youmentioned is security.
First of all, mobile networksor cellular networks are,
definition, a little bit moresecure than maybe some other
methods of delivering data,which is good, but we believe
(08:10):
that we should embed securitymeasures within the solution
that we provide.
We know that many of the IoTdevices are not capable of
having, you know, devicesecurity with them, because not
all the devices are high-enddevices, not all of them enough
(08:32):
memory, cpu on the device tomaybe manage device-level
security, and therefore we feelthat we have the obligation to
provide network-based securityto our customers.
And because we are the network,we own the core networks, we
own the billing, we own theapplet on the device.
Basically, we can have a fairlywide perspective of the
(08:53):
metadata of the customers,meaning the signaling data, the
billing data, et cetera, not thepayload itself, but the
metadata.
And by analyzing the metadata inreal time, which is what we do,
we can get a fairly solid viewof the device from an
operational standpoint, but alsofrom a security standpoint, and
provide customers with alertsif something abnormal is taking
(09:18):
place with their specificdevices or with their network.
And this is how we allow somehigher level of security to our
customers based on the network.
And this is how we allow somehigher level of security to our
customers based on the network.
And, by the way, this is and weprobably are going to touch it
later on but this is one of theareas we are going to invest
quite a lot in, because webelieve that this is really our
responsibility to protectcustomers' assets using Flowline
(09:38):
.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, great point.
And that sort of leads into thenext question around data
sovereignty.
It's a big topic, not just inEurope, but every country now
has new data protection rulesand its compliance rules.
How do you address thoserequirements, being a global
provider but also a highly localprovider?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, If you look at all these compliance
requirements and you try to getthe common requirements of all
the different regulations comingin.
These regulations are in placeto do two things.
One is to protect personalsensitive information.
(10:25):
This is one thing, and thesecond thing is which is
different is to make sure thatcritical infrastructure is in
the control of, you know, orbeing controlled locally for
different reasons, and I thinkthis is one of the places where
(10:48):
the distributed architecturethat we are offering can provide
benefits.
And the more networks we deployaround the world, in more
regions and in more countries,the more we are adhering with
local regulation in thesecountries.
So, for example, we now havemultiple locations in Europe
(11:11):
where we have local data centers.
Obviously, we can be verycompliant in Europe.
If you have multiple locationsin the US, same goes for the US.
And then you have the specialcountries like Brazil and
Australia and Turkey and SouthAfrica, you know, and others
where you need to have localizedsolutions because of data
(11:32):
compliance and regulation, butalso because some of the MNO
themselves are posing somelimitations on the use of
roaming.
And basically, we integrate withthese MNOs and provide local
data termination with these MNOsto allow your customers to have
smooth operation over time andnot be blocked by the local MNOs
(11:55):
.
I would just say one last thingabout this one Working very
tightly with by no mean is hereto basically replace the MNOs or
compete with them.
We're working very closely withthe MNOs.
We believe that our solutionbasically augments the MNO
(12:16):
solution and provides and getsgetting the best out of each MNO
to build a truly globalsolution for the customer's
needs.
The customers can be theenterprises, the MNOs and
service providers of the market,but also the MNOs themselves.
So working tightly with theMNOs basically solved the
compliance issues as well.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Fantastic, switching gears a bit.
Everyone's excited about AI andmachine learning.
What's your perspective as atechnologist?
How are you using AI in yourtech stack or your operations,
or helping customers orotherwise?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, so first of all , we need to differentiate
between two different ways ofusing AI.
I think that any company in theworld now is using AI for
improving the operations youknow and different tasks for the
operation.
I don't think that Flowlight isdifferent than any country in
this respect.
You know using AI in marketingand finance and customer support
(13:15):
and operations and R&D and allthat.
This is all given.
For me, the interesting angleof using AI is how do we bake AI
into our solutions so ourcustomers can get better
services now and in the future.
That's the main question thatwe're dealing with, and when you
(13:37):
think about AI, the fundamentalthing you need is the right
data, as much as possible inreal time in a structured way,
so we can use it easily to feedthe AI models, and I mentioned
(13:57):
that before.
But this is exactly thestrength of the solution we are
trying to build, meaning if weown the core network and we
deploy the core network in manyparts of the world and we fetch
the information from the corenetworks all around the world in
real time to one big data lake,and if we own the billing
(14:18):
system and we fetch theinformation from our billing
system in real time into thesame data lake and we fetch the
information from the same appletin the same time, in real time,
to the same data lake andrefresh the information from the
same applet in the same time,in real time, to the same data
lake and from the connectivitymanagement platform to the same
data lake.
Now you have a data lake withinformation that sees the
customer's operation from alldifferent angles and
(14:40):
perspectives in one place,structured and ready to be used,
and now applying AI models toget real benefits for customers
is becoming much easier, andareas where we are already
starting to apply AI to helpcustomers are basically one of
(15:04):
them, and not everything isstill in the market.
Not everything is operationaloperational but it's coming.
Uh, one of them I mentionedbefore is around security and
the use of ai to try to betterprotect devices network.
The second area is isoperational efficiency for
customers.
If you need to manage 1 millionsims all around the world, you
(15:28):
must be able to not only see inreal time the abnormal behaviors
of your existing devices.
You need to be able to try tounderstand what's going to
happen with your devices downthe stream, with changes of
networks, with changes along theday, with data transmissions
and all these things and haverecommendations on how to manage
(15:49):
your fleet or how to grow yourfleet.
So we believe that AI canreally be a good way for
customers to manage operation inthe present, but also forecast
on how you do it in the future.
And the third area is how tooptimize cost, not only
operation, so how to optimizecost means.
(16:09):
Can I steer the network in adifferent way to lower my cost?
Can I use a different rule todo something different with my
devices, a different package onmy billing?
And it's very hard forcustomers to really try to
connect all the dots when theyhave so many devices, so many
plans, so many networks.
But if you let AI do it, getall the information, tell
(16:33):
customers in this specificnetwork, in this specific
country, if you move to thisplan, you'll save 20%.
Well, that would be great.
So we don't have it yet, butdefinitely something we can do
and we are planning to havewithin our solution.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Wow, that's exciting, particularly for a global 2000
kind of enterprise.
That would be unprecedented.
Speaking of globalcommunications, it's an exciting
time in telecom with all kindsof new networks coming on stream
, satellite in particular.
I made my first satellite callup in New Hampshire on my
standard iPhone for the firsttime.
(17:09):
It was almost magical, but thatopens up new doors for IoT as
well.
What's your strategy as far asthese new networks is concerned?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We see ourselves, we see our responsibility in
bringing to our customers thebest solution that serves their
needs, and I spoke before aboutthe fact that we are deploying
core networks all around theworld and integrating with many
different mobile networkoperators to get the best
coverage to our customers undera single solution.
(17:44):
For us, bringing satelliteconnectivity is very, very
natural to this approach as well.
In some areas satellite is theright solution, and satellite
for me is just like anothermobile network operator bringing
their physical asset.
In the case of the mobilenetwork operators it's their
(18:04):
radio access network.
In the case of satellite it'sthe satellite itself, but it's
another mean for allowing aproper, secure, high-performing
coverage in areas for customerson the same route.
So you can find a sync of theflowline with you know the first
profile would be operator Awith his or their roaming
(18:26):
agreement.
The first profile would beoperator A with his or their
roaming agreement and profile Bwould be operator B with their
roaming agreement and profile Cwould be a satellite.
And when a device cannot findcoverage with the first and the
second operators, which areregular operators, it will flip
to the satellite coverage anduse a satellite exactly in the
same way it could have usedanother operator.
(18:47):
So, very, very natural to ourapproach, we very much encourage
the use of satellite as part ofthe solution.
We've already embedded onesatellite provider within our
solution and we'll definitelyadd more customers.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Fantastic.
So there are so many use casesand applications for IoT, I mean
so many great ones that aremaking a real difference.
Agriculture and farming, and onand on.
But do you have any favoritestories or anecdotes around what
your customers are doing?
They must be quite diverse.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I don't think we have enough time, but let me
give you some examples, somenice stories from all around the
world.
So, for example, in Europe nowwe have a project with one of
the mobile network operatorshelping the MNO and one of the
local companies there to connecthundreds of thousands of
electricity meters to thenetwork across the entire
(19:46):
country.
Out of Singapore we have acustomer that is connecting
cleaning robots to the networkall around the world.
Out of the Middle East we havea customer that is delivering
water irrigation systems in morethan 120 countries around the
world.
We have customers that aredoing asset tracking with
(20:09):
Flowlight In almost everycountry we can find there.
And two more use cases that arevery, very common here with
Flowlight.
One is telematics.
We are seeing a lot oftelematics companies coming in
and using our assets because ofthe stability and the coverage
and everything to basically getlet's call it, smart.
(20:33):
Mobility use cases onboarded on4Live Video is becoming quite
big.
We're seeing different types ofvideo use cases onboarded on
the platform Surveillance videocameras, dashboard cameras,
hunting cameras, traversing alot of data to the network, to
the customer's cloud, and maybethe last one that I would
(20:54):
mention that is now emerging tobe quite big for us is all the
point of sale, vending machines,charging use cases.
All these use cases that arevery sensitive to stability and
security are also becoming verypopular on the platform.
So you can see, it's reallycoming from different parts of
the world and different types ofindustries, and I think this is
(21:19):
what is fascinating about thisbusiness.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, it's amazing.
It's so uplifting to hear howtech is being used for good in
so many different ways and forbusiness and profitability.
So how can I engage withFlowline?
Maybe I'm an enterprise in theUS or a systems integrator,
maybe I have a project.
What's the process?
(21:44):
How do I deploy your technology?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It's a great question .
First of all, we are workingacross the board, and the
primary way in which we aregoing to the market is working
with the MNOs, mvnos, iotservice providers.
Sometimes, in specific cases,we may find ourselves selling to
enterprises, but the vastmajority and the main line of
(22:12):
our strategy is to work with ourpartners.
Again, the partners are ourmobile network operators, mvnos,
iot service providers.
These are the direct customersof Flowline and, first of all, I
encourage any of these types ofcustomers MNOs, mvnos, iot
service providers, systemintegrators, anyone that
(22:36):
considers connectivity to bepart of their portfolio to get
in touch with us, and we have asales team basically in already
a few places around the worldEuropean team, american team in
the US.
We have people in APAC as well,with partners in many other
parts of the world.
So please reach out and we'lllet you know how quickly we can
serve you and get your servicesup and running.
In some cases, biggerenterprises are looking to work
(23:00):
directly with Flowline and then,in this case, they can refer to
us.
If we can find a partner ofFlowline that can support their
needs, then that's great, and if, for specific reasons, they
need to work directly with us,we'll find a way to do it, but
we are working mainly with ourpartners again MNOs, mdnos, iot
(23:21):
Service Provider, systemIntegrators.
They are great partners ofFlowlight and we are looking to
expand with them.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Fantastic.
Well, congratulations on allthe success and, onwards and
upwards, look forward tocatching up soon.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Thank you very much, Ivan.
Appreciate the time today andlooking forward to speak again
soon.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Have a nice day, thanks Likewise.
Thanks everyone for listeningand watching.
Take care.
Hey everyone, diving into one of my favorite topics
the global IoT marketplace witha real innovator in the space at
FlowLive Nir, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm doing great.
Good morning, even Good to seeyou.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yes, good to see you as well, and we met at Mobile
World Congress.
Seems like an eternity ago, notjust a few months ago.
Like an eternity ago, not justa few months ago.
For the folks listening, tellus about Flow Live, how the
company was founded, yourservices and the journey that
you're on as CEO.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, so Flow Live basically is in the market for
the last eight years almost, andFlow Live was built and created
to solve one thing, and it isto allow companies from all
around the world to connecttheir things to the network
using cellular and satelliteconnectivity in a seamless way
(00:57):
where we take care of everythingneeded to do that.
In 2020, I joined FlowLive as aCEO coming from AT&T and we
started to reconstruct all thecomponents and basically for the
(01:22):
last four years, we are helpingcustomers to cross their IoT
global journey with FlowLive.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Fantastic, and talk about my favorite topic in the
network your network Maybedescribe the scale, the scope,
the reach of the Flow Livebasically cellular network, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So to do that, I think we need to explain a
little bit more about theapproach of Flow Live to solving
the global connectivity needs,because I think this is where we
are coming.
A little bit more about theapproach of Flowlife to solving
the global connectivity needs,because I think this is where we
are coming, a little bitdifferent than the traditional
approach in the market.
So if you look at thetraditional solutions in the
market coming from the big MNOsand many of the MDNOs of the IoT
(01:59):
connectivity domain, you wouldtypically see organizations that
have very strong and very goodsolutions in some regions of the
world.
If we talk about the MNOs, itis normally where they have
their own native footprint interms of radio access and
network coverage, and then theycover the rest of the world
(02:22):
using their roaming agreementsand some other capabilities
added to their roamingagreements to try to serve the
global connectivity needs of thecustomers.
From the get going, we thoughtthat doing that is OK for many
use cases, but it's not enoughfor some use cases and
definitely do not solve all theneeds of our customers.
(02:45):
If you look on customers, theylook for coverage anywhere in
the world.
They look for sustainableservice.
They look for performance andcompliance and security.
There are many differentaspects of the solution that
they need to have with their IoTconnectivity and we thought
that only relying on theseroaming agreements and with
(03:08):
centralized operation is notenough.
And what we built is somethingslightly different.
We decided to develop the entiretechnology required for the IoT
connectivity needs in-house.
We talk about the core network,the billing system, the
connectivity management platformand the SIM applet, the remote
(03:29):
SIM provisioning capabilities Toget them together as a single
solution sitting in the Cloud.
But then doing one more thingwith taking these network
components really the corenetwork and distributing the
core networks all around theworld and integrating with the
right MNOs in different regions.
(03:50):
Basically stitch together allthese subnetworks, if you may,
into one global network with asingle connectivity management
platform and billing on top ofit and with the ability to
switch and change and tune theprovider on the SIM card based
on the customer specific needs.
(04:12):
So, if you want what we've done, we built many different
networks around the world to getthem all together to a single
solution for our customers touse and this way, basically, you
really solve the customer'sproblems Because, while the
customer is getting one globalsolution that they can manage
with a single API, single UI, etcetera.
(04:33):
From a device perspective,devices are connected to local
networks in many differentregions, in many different parts
of the world, and that's, Ithink, the different approach
that we take from at least thelegacy solutions in the market.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Amazing.
So let's unpack that, becauseyou said a lot there and a
single global frictionlessnetwork is kind of an amazing
accomplishment.
How do you consider you knowyou solve the fragmentation
issue, but how do you thinkabout performance and
reliability and security andease of you know, provisioning
(05:08):
All the challenges that IoT hashad even today?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah.
So let's start with the lastpoint that you mentioned the
ease of operation.
Customers should get a servicewhere they do not need to
dictate up front to which partof the world the device will go
or should be connected.
They should basically embed theconnectivity capabilities, the
(05:34):
SIM card or the virtual profilewithin their devices in the
factory and they should be ableto send the devices anywhere in
the world.
Devices should connect and sendand receive data seamlessly.
That's the first thing to startwith and that's for the ease of
operation.
And then, no matter how manynetworks we use underneath and
(05:56):
how many different IMSIs andprofiles of different MNOs we
use underneath, customers shouldhave a single UI, single API,
single build to manage all thesethings.
So from an operationalperspective, it should be as
easy as that.
This is the first thing.
When we talk about performance,one of the things that impact
performance most is the factthat in many solutions, data
(06:20):
need to travel from one regionto the other region, sometimes
even between differentcontinents.
So, for example, the mainservers of the operators are,
let's say, in the US and thedevices are in Europe.
The data needs to go back andforth, or at least the metadata
needs to go back and forth, andthe fact that we are building
local networks in many differentregions allows devices to
(06:43):
basically terminate the datalocally and by that have
improved performance on averagearound the world.
So the de-aggregated,distributed network architecture
allows better performance justby allowing devices to connect
in region to local networks orto at least sub of the network
in the packet gateway, as wecall them.
(07:03):
That allows the performance tobe better on an average least
sub of the network in the packetgateway, as we call them.
That allows the performance tobe better on an average case all
around the world.
This is number one.
When you talk about compliance,basically the answer is more or
less the same.
We see two types of use casesfor customers.
If we try to do it very, veryroughly.
Ok, there are customers thatneed their data to be in region
(07:27):
anywhere in the world.
So, for example, they havemedical devices in Europe.
They need all the European datato stay in Europe, and the
medical devices in the US needto have all the data staying in
the US, et cetera.
But they still want a singleglobal operation.
So you need to have a servicethat allows customers to many
things globally on one hand, butterminate data locally, on the
(07:47):
other hand, which is right forperformance and also for
compliance.
So this is the second thingabout compliance.
And then the last thing that youmentioned is security.
First of all, mobile networksor cellular networks are,
definition, a little bit moresecure than maybe some other
methods of delivering data,which is good, but we believe
(08:10):
that we should embed securitymeasures within the solution
that we provide.
We know that many of the IoTdevices are not capable of
having, you know, devicesecurity with them, because not
all the devices are high-enddevices, not all of them enough
(08:32):
memory, cpu on the device tomaybe manage device-level
security, and therefore we feelthat we have the obligation to
provide network-based securityto our customers.
And because we are the network,we own the core networks, we
own the billing, we own theapplet on the device.
Basically, we can have a fairlywide perspective of the
(08:53):
metadata of the customers,meaning the signaling data, the
billing data, et cetera, not thepayload itself, but the
metadata.
And by analyzing the metadata inreal time, which is what we do,
we can get a fairly solid viewof the device from an
operational standpoint, but alsofrom a security standpoint, and
provide customers with alertsif something abnormal is taking
(09:18):
place with their specificdevices or with their network.
And this is how we allow somehigher level of security to our
customers based on the network.
And this is how we allow somehigher level of security to our
customers based on the network.
And, by the way, this is and weprobably are going to touch it
later on but this is one of theareas we are going to invest
quite a lot in, because webelieve that this is really our
responsibility to protectcustomers' assets using Flowline
(09:38):
.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, great point.
And that sort of leads into thenext question around data
sovereignty.
It's a big topic, not just inEurope, but every country now
has new data protection rulesand its compliance rules.
How do you address thoserequirements, being a global
provider but also a highly localprovider?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, If you look at all these compliance
requirements and you try to getthe common requirements of all
the different regulations comingin.
These regulations are in placeto do two things.
One is to protect personalsensitive information.
(10:25):
This is one thing, and thesecond thing is which is
different is to make sure thatcritical infrastructure is in
the control of, you know, orbeing controlled locally for
different reasons, and I thinkthis is one of the places where
(10:48):
the distributed architecturethat we are offering can provide
benefits.
And the more networks we deployaround the world, in more
regions and in more countries,the more we are adhering with
local regulation in thesecountries.
So, for example, we now havemultiple locations in Europe
(11:11):
where we have local data centers.
Obviously, we can be verycompliant in Europe.
If you have multiple locationsin the US, same goes for the US.
And then you have the specialcountries like Brazil and
Australia and Turkey and SouthAfrica, you know, and others
where you need to have localizedsolutions because of data
(11:32):
compliance and regulation, butalso because some of the MNO
themselves are posing somelimitations on the use of
roaming.
And basically, we integrate withthese MNOs and provide local
data termination with these MNOsto allow your customers to have
smooth operation over time andnot be blocked by the local MNOs
(11:55):
.
I would just say one last thingabout this one Working very
tightly with by no mean is hereto basically replace the MNOs or
compete with them.
We're working very closely withthe MNOs.
We believe that our solutionbasically augments the MNO
(12:16):
solution and provides and getsgetting the best out of each MNO
to build a truly globalsolution for the customer's
needs.
The customers can be theenterprises, the MNOs and
service providers of the market,but also the MNOs themselves.
So working tightly with theMNOs basically solved the
compliance issues as well.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Fantastic, switching gears a bit.
Everyone's excited about AI andmachine learning.
What's your perspective as atechnologist?
How are you using AI in yourtech stack or your operations,
or helping customers orotherwise?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, so first of all , we need to differentiate
between two different ways ofusing AI.
I think that any company in theworld now is using AI for
improving the operations youknow and different tasks for the
operation.
I don't think that Flowlight isdifferent than any country in
this respect.
You know using AI in marketingand finance and customer support
(13:15):
and operations and R&D and allthat.
This is all given.
For me, the interesting angleof using AI is how do we bake AI
into our solutions so ourcustomers can get better
services now and in the future.
That's the main question thatwe're dealing with, and when you
(13:37):
think about AI, the fundamentalthing you need is the right
data, as much as possible inreal time in a structured way,
so we can use it easily to feedthe AI models, and I mentioned
(13:57):
that before.
But this is exactly thestrength of the solution we are
trying to build, meaning if weown the core network and we
deploy the core network in manyparts of the world and we fetch
the information from the corenetworks all around the world in
real time to one big data lake,and if we own the billing
(14:18):
system and we fetch theinformation from our billing
system in real time into thesame data lake and we fetch the
information from the same appletin the same time, in real time,
to the same data lake andrefresh the information from the
same applet in the same time,in real time, to the same data
lake and from the connectivitymanagement platform to the same
data lake.
Now you have a data lake withinformation that sees the
customer's operation from alldifferent angles and
(14:40):
perspectives in one place,structured and ready to be used,
and now applying AI models toget real benefits for customers
is becoming much easier, andareas where we are already
starting to apply AI to helpcustomers are basically one of
(15:04):
them, and not everything isstill in the market.
Not everything is operationaloperational but it's coming.
Uh, one of them I mentionedbefore is around security and
the use of ai to try to betterprotect devices network.
The second area is isoperational efficiency for
customers.
If you need to manage 1 millionsims all around the world, you
(15:28):
must be able to not only see inreal time the abnormal behaviors
of your existing devices.
You need to be able to try tounderstand what's going to
happen with your devices downthe stream, with changes of
networks, with changes along theday, with data transmissions
and all these things and haverecommendations on how to manage
(15:49):
your fleet or how to grow yourfleet.
So we believe that AI canreally be a good way for
customers to manage operation inthe present, but also forecast
on how you do it in the future.
And the third area is how tooptimize cost, not only
operation, so how to optimizecost means.
(16:09):
Can I steer the network in adifferent way to lower my cost?
Can I use a different rule todo something different with my
devices, a different package onmy billing?
And it's very hard forcustomers to really try to
connect all the dots when theyhave so many devices, so many
plans, so many networks.
But if you let AI do it, getall the information, tell
(16:33):
customers in this specificnetwork, in this specific
country, if you move to thisplan, you'll save 20%.
Well, that would be great.
So we don't have it yet, butdefinitely something we can do
and we are planning to havewithin our solution.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Wow, that's exciting, particularly for a global 2000
kind of enterprise.
That would be unprecedented.
Speaking of globalcommunications, it's an exciting
time in telecom with all kindsof new networks coming on stream
, satellite in particular.
I made my first satellite callup in New Hampshire on my
standard iPhone for the firsttime.
(17:09):
It was almost magical, but thatopens up new doors for IoT as
well.
What's your strategy as far asthese new networks is concerned?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
We see ourselves, we see our responsibility in
bringing to our customers thebest solution that serves their
needs, and I spoke before aboutthe fact that we are deploying
core networks all around theworld and integrating with many
different mobile networkoperators to get the best
coverage to our customers undera single solution.
(17:44):
For us, bringing satelliteconnectivity is very, very
natural to this approach as well.
In some areas satellite is theright solution, and satellite
for me is just like anothermobile network operator bringing
their physical asset.
In the case of the mobilenetwork operators it's their
(18:04):
radio access network.
In the case of satellite it'sthe satellite itself, but it's
another mean for allowing aproper, secure, high-performing
coverage in areas for customerson the same route.
So you can find a sync of theflowline with you know the first
profile would be operator Awith his or their roaming
(18:26):
agreement.
The first profile would beoperator A with his or their
roaming agreement and profile Bwould be operator B with their
roaming agreement and profile Cwould be a satellite.
And when a device cannot findcoverage with the first and the
second operators, which areregular operators, it will flip
to the satellite coverage anduse a satellite exactly in the
same way it could have usedanother operator.
(18:47):
So, very, very natural to ourapproach, we very much encourage
the use of satellite as part ofthe solution.
We've already embedded onesatellite provider within our
solution and we'll definitelyadd more customers.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Fantastic.
So there are so many use casesand applications for IoT, I mean
so many great ones that aremaking a real difference.
Agriculture and farming, and onand on.
But do you have any favoritestories or anecdotes around what
your customers are doing?
They must be quite diverse.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I don't think we have enough time, but let me
give you some examples, somenice stories from all around the
world.
So, for example, in Europe nowwe have a project with one of
the mobile network operatorshelping the MNO and one of the
local companies there to connecthundreds of thousands of
electricity meters to thenetwork across the entire
(19:46):
country.
Out of Singapore we have acustomer that is connecting
cleaning robots to the networkall around the world.
Out of the Middle East we havea customer that is delivering
water irrigation systems in morethan 120 countries around the
world.
We have customers that aredoing asset tracking with
(20:09):
Flowlight In almost everycountry we can find there.
And two more use cases that arevery, very common here with
Flowlight.
One is telematics.
We are seeing a lot oftelematics companies coming in
and using our assets because ofthe stability and the coverage
and everything to basically getlet's call it, smart.
(20:33):
Mobility use cases onboarded on4Live Video is becoming quite
big.
We're seeing different types ofvideo use cases onboarded on
the platform Surveillance videocameras, dashboard cameras,
hunting cameras, traversing alot of data to the network, to
the customer's cloud, and maybethe last one that I would
(20:54):
mention that is now emerging tobe quite big for us is all the
point of sale, vending machines,charging use cases.
All these use cases that arevery sensitive to stability and
security are also becoming verypopular on the platform.
So you can see, it's reallycoming from different parts of
the world and different types ofindustries, and I think this is
(21:19):
what is fascinating about thisbusiness.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, it's amazing.
It's so uplifting to hear howtech is being used for good in
so many different ways and forbusiness and profitability.
So how can I engage withFlowline?
Maybe I'm an enterprise in theUS or a systems integrator,
maybe I have a project.
What's the process?
(21:44):
How do I deploy your technology?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It's a great question .
First of all, we are workingacross the board, and the
primary way in which we aregoing to the market is working
with the MNOs, mvnos, iotservice providers.
Sometimes, in specific cases,we may find ourselves selling to
enterprises, but the vastmajority and the main line of
(22:12):
our strategy is to work with ourpartners.
Again, the partners are ourmobile network operators, mvnos,
iot service providers.
These are the direct customersof Flowline and, first of all, I
encourage any of these types ofcustomers MNOs, mvnos, iot
service providers, systemintegrators, anyone that
(22:36):
considers connectivity to bepart of their portfolio to get
in touch with us, and we have asales team basically in already
a few places around the worldEuropean team, american team in
the US.
We have people in APAC as well,with partners in many other
parts of the world.
So please reach out and we'lllet you know how quickly we can
serve you and get your servicesup and running.
In some cases, biggerenterprises are looking to work
(23:00):
directly with Flowline and then,in this case, they can refer to
us.
If we can find a partner ofFlowline that can support their
needs, then that's great, and if, for specific reasons, they
need to work directly with us,we'll find a way to do it, but
we are working mainly with ourpartners again MNOs, mdnos, iot
(23:21):
Service Provider, systemIntegrators.
They are great partners ofFlowlight and we are looking to
expand with them.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Fantastic.
Well, congratulations on allthe success and, onwards and
upwards, look forward tocatching up soon.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Thank you very much, Ivan.
Appreciate the time today andlooking forward to speak again
soon.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Have a nice day, thanks Likewise.
Thanks everyone for listeningand watching.
Take care.
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