Explaining Programmable Telecoms and why its importance, why predictions are usually wrong, what to look for in less wrong predictions. Presented at Restconn 2017 in Prague May 23-25.

3. Most predictions are wrong,
and the biggest misses come from experts.

8. 1876: "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty
of messenger boys." — William Preece, British Post Office.
1876: "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication." — William Orton, President of Western Union.
1889: “Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody
will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison
1961: "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used
to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the
United States." — T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
commissioner.
2005: "There's just not that many videos I want to watch." — Steve Chen, CTO and
co-founder of YouTube expressing concerns about his company’s long term
viability.
2006: "Everyone's always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone.
My answer is, 'Probably never.'" — David Pogue, The New York Times.
2007: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market
share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

12. Warning signs:
Opinion, lack of NUMBERS/EVIDENCE
Long term predictions
Futurology (AKA Corporate Astrology)
Comes from GSMA, TMF, large vendor, The Donald…
What you’re going to hear about today:
Near term (2-3 years)
Numbers/Evidence based
N.B. and some of it will still be wrong as generally the
market changes slower than we think, and
technologies can change faster. Sometimes the reverse
is true. And people sometimes just act like lemmings.

13. Telecoms is now Democratized

14. Telecoms is now Democratized

15. Telecoms is now Democratized

16. Telecoms is now Democratized

17. More Examples: Improving Business Operations
• Aeris – Global M2M/IoT MVNO using open source telecom app server and APIs for
enterprise use cases
• Banque Casino – Global bank using click to call to increase customer engagement
• Criteo – global marketing company using telecom APIs / platforms to improve
internal communications
• Delivery.com – online food ordering, using telecom APIs in process with local stores
• Evaneos – online custom travel planning using WebRTC to improve communications
and lower costs
• HireIQ – call center recruitment using telecom APIs to improve multi-lingual hiring
and retention
• Home Depot – online trade-person portal for home owners – improve call center
operations
• Hulu – IP video service, deliver unique call center experience on telecom APIs
• Intuit – one of the first 2FA services using APIs giving an 18 month lead in SMB
payroll services

18. More Examples: Improving Business Operations
• Jamko Force Networks – SIP trucking that enables small businesses to offer
hosted voice services
• Liveperson – Adding contextual based calling to better route customer
communications
• Pinig – Amazon Mayday like service upgrade to their easy to use tablets
• Protivit – Using telecom APIs for corporate compliance
• Questar – Using telecom APIs for sales receipt feedback
• UK City Transfers – using telecom APIs for local phone numbers and connecting
travellers and local car services
• USA Contact Point - SIP trucking to support a call center’s specific needs
• Viber – SMS support for two factor authentication
• Zanox – Voice API (cloud voice services) to support call tracking for advertising

19. More Examples: Made Possible…..
• BetterVoice – re-inventing business class phone system using open source and
telecom APIs
• BlueLight – enhanced security and emergency calling using telecom APIs
• Burner – using telecom APIs to make money out of all the unused phone numbers
• Extrogene / OfferHut – business focused on creating telecom API enabled services
• Fone.do – moving the SMB phone system into the browwer using open source and
telecom APIs
• KISST – SMS based CRM using telecom APIs
• Mercury Flight – broadcast messaging using telecom APIs
• Mobisec - business focused on creating telecom API enabled services
• RogerVoice – enabling deaf people to use the phone with VoIP redirect and speech
to text
• Speak2Leads – lead response management using telecom APIs
• Textizen – citizen engagement using SMS
• TimeForge – employee scheduling using telecom APIs

20. Delivery.com.
Description: Delivery.com provides a
simple online service: see who delivers in
your neighborhood. Across food, alcohol,
groceries and laundry. They are based in
the US with 150 employees and revenues
$50M-$100M.
Application: A customer places their order
online at delivery.com. The order is faxed to
the merchant, and then the merchant is auto-
dialed to confirm the order is OK and that it will
be ready or delivered on time using the
confirmation code on the fax, and hence the
credit card payment can be made.
Awareness: We’d seen vendors like
Voxeo and the recently funded Twilio
talking about Telecom APIs. We needed a
network partner with 24 by 7 up-time,
that had control over their infrastructure.
We also talked with their larger
customers.
Impact: Moving to a telecom API removed
a major headache in our growth. We can
scale instantaneously, from 50 to 100 calls
per minute. Our operating costs are about
50% lower, but the big gain is in
management focus, its focused on core
operations not telecoms.
Why: They had 8 voice servers with primary rate
PSTN network connections. They used Asterisk and
Dialogic cards. It required significant support, when
problems arose they were dependent on either the
Asterisk community or themselves to solve
problems. When a line card failed it took time
(weeks) to replace. Their business had reached a size
that every minute of lost service resulted in
hundreds if not thousands of dollars of lost revenue.
Plans: Many of these stores are not online, but SMS is
amazingly powerful. We can confirm orders not by the
fixed phone line in the store, but by SMS to the store
owner’s mobile phone. We maintain a ‘connection’
between the customer and the merchant. Say an
order is going to be delayed by 10 minutes, the
merchant lets us know by SMS and we let the
customer know.”

21. Evanos
Description: Evaneos is a custom
travel agency, founded in 2009,
employing roughly 100 people, with
revenues of about $20-50M.
Application: Customers can review available
vacations / destinations, then customize and
discuss the itinerary with the local agent.
Monitoring the quality of these connections
was critical using the trial phase. We found they
were rated better than traditional PSTN calls.
Awareness: We met Apidaze at a developer
event in Paris, and from that meeting we were
able to trial and build out our agent
communications using WebRTC to avoid
international call charges and more
importantly improve the quality of the calls
with local agents around the world
Impact: Apart from the cost savings from all
the international calls, it’s the improvement in
sales from the higher quality voice. People
communicating drive our business, and making
that experience as good as possible has a
significant (>10%) impact sales.
Why: English tends to be the language used
on the calls, and often both parties are using
English as a second language. The quality of
that call is essential to a successful deal.
International PSTN calls are often expensive
as well as low quality. Using WebRTC from
Apidaze has transformed our business in
lowering cost of operations and improving
sales.
Plans: We are expanding the using of Apidaze
communication services and features across all
our communications (both internal and
external).

22. HireIQ
Description: HireIQ’s SaaS-based on demand
interviewing and assessment solutions improve
hiring efficiency, lower attrition, and improve
workforce performance. Founded in 2009,
based in the US, employs about 20 people,
revenues of $5-10M.
Application: We automates the initial interviews.
The potential recruit simply clicks on a link or makes a
call to answer some prerecorded standard questions
whenever and wherever is convenient for them. The
answers are recorded and sent to the recruiter for
review. This is all provided by Tropo.
Awareness: Our CTO had worked with Tropo in
the past and was confident on their ability to
deliver a reliable platform with first class
support. Telecom APIs make it so easy to
automate many tasks in business. We avoid the
costs of running a call center, dealing with
carriers, and other operational distractions.
We’re at about 15 to 20% of the cost of
running it ourselves.
Impact: We reduce hiring effort by 80%, hiring
time by 40%, retention by 60-100% and agent
performance by 35-60%. This is saving our
customers between $100k to well over $1M
per year. Some of out customers employ over
35k agents. Simply through automating the
front-end recruitment process.
Why: We need a trusted partner to run our
business on. I can not stress this more highly.
Trust and reliability of your API provider are
mission critical. If their service fails we are
loosing revenue, our business credibility is
impacted. Problems do happen, and this is
where immediate open communications are
critical to help us manage situations.
Plans: Our focus remains on greater
automation and accuracy of candidate
selection, through further tests and
assessments. This focus would not be possible
without all the backend technology being
outsourced thanks to telecom APIs.

23. Home Depot
Description: Redbeacon (owned by Home
Depot) connects qualified pros with
homeowners who are looking for a pro to help
with their home-service projects. Since the
acquisition in 2012 no details are publicly
available, team is estimated at 50 people with
$50 M in revenues.
Application: The IVR is the crux of our business, we
have vetted professionals, we gather the home owner
project details, then informing the professionals, and
then connect the selected professional and home
owner. Our process is tightly bound to our systems
and IVR, no off the shelf commercial system could
deliver.
Awareness: Became aware of Telecom APIs
through efforts of Twilio, Tropo, Plivo and
Programmable Web. The problem we faced
was scaling our CRM to serve Home Depots
2200 stores in 2 months, on a limited budget.
We were now a P&L center within a big
corporation, cash was as tight as being a start-
up.
Impact: Cloud communications is the only cost
option. It avoids scaling risks, it converts a
multiple million dollar investment into about
$50k per month. We can customize and refine,
we have control. All the traditional IVR
solutions resulted in expensive platform and SI
lock-in.
Why: ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) centers
come in at $1k-$2k per agent. CTI (Computer
Telephony Integration) can cost $2k to $5k per
seat. IVR can cost up to $1M. And adding simple
features like quality monitoring or voice
recording were $500 per seat. Using Twilio meant
we could meet the goal with minimal upfront and
month fee of about $50k per month (almost
same opex as other options).
Plans: Would not share plans as confidential

25. What is the Programmable Telecoms adoption Curve?

26. Defining Programmable Telecoms
• Calling, sending text messages (SMS and IM), sending audio and video
messages, video calling/streaming, faxing (yep, fax still exists), secure
communications (encrypted), decentralized communications (decentralized
web), identity, mobile payments, and much much more is possible through
easy to use APIs, SDKs, and GUIs (RVD).
• It can be:
o cloud, on premise, or hybrid, or virtualized, or just running on your laptop
o open or closed source, or a mixture
o purely IP based, or purely PSTN based, or a mixture
o private, public, regional, country-wide or global
• It covers acronyms like A2P, cPaaS, UCaaS, WebRTC, SIP, SS7, RCS, PSTN, IP-
RTC, etc.
• The fundamental property is its telecoms-based and its programmable
• Restcomm is at the heart of Programmable Telecoms

27. Rise of A2P from PSTN to IP

28. A2P (Application to Person)
• A2P is messaging between businesses (and their applications) and people, not
person to person (p2p) messaging. Common use cases include:
• Alerts and notifications: flight alerts via SMS/MMS, push notifications, email,
voice, IM (FB Messenger, LINE, Wechat).
• Two factor authentication (2FA): logging into your bank and then receiving
an SMS or voice call to the mobile or phone number on file for the account
with a one time use code.
• Messaging based CRM: 1 800 SMS responses to queries, “When do you
open?”
• Ecommerce: paying for services like taxis using an app on the messaging
platform (didi on wechat).
• IoT (Internet of Things): using messaging bots to aggregate home
automation silos, using messaging for interacting with IoT devices directly.
• Market Size
• Well-established and growing market, $27B (2016) globally to $47B (2021),
a CAGR of 12%.
• Much more than A2P SMS. It also includes push messaging, email, voice, IP
messaging, and RCS (Rich Communication Suite) and in time iMessage.
• Use cases are growing rapidly enabled by new technologies: telecoms is now
programmable, bots, IoT, & machine learning.

29. Facebook Messenger TODAY has better placement than SMS!
29

30. Global A2P Traffic
Estimates (SMS billions)
Global A2P Revenue
Estimates ($ billions)
Existing A2P Analysis is Broken
30
Traffic range: 400B to 2,000B A2P SMS in 2015!
Revenue range: $12B to $60B in 2015!
Missed all the other A2P Technologies!
Most Telecom Analysts are CRAP – now just press with fancy title!

32. Complexity = Opportunity
For Restcomm

33. Restcomm Opportunities
• cPaaS / UCaaS - $20B
• Next generation telecom service providers like MVNOs / vertical
focused SPs / FB & Google - $30B
• Enterprises are doing it themselves, currently its early adopters,
but telecom is now like IT, some businesses own for competitive
advantage - $20B
• Telcos must lower costs of infrastructure software to survive.
Ericsson / Oracle / Nokia / Huawei are incapable of changing their
cost basis. - $30B
• Programmable Telecoms is BIG!

34. TRANSFORMATION
Programmable Telecoms

35. Programmable Telecoms

36. Programmable Telecoms: the most important change in
our industry, and the most ignored change
• Why is this the case?
o Incumbents (GSMA, TMF, big vendors) dislike change they can not control. We’re
democratizing telecoms. We’re taking away their control!
• Always ask “where’s the money?” then ramble on about Transformation, NFV, OTT, 5G
etc..
o For many non-telecoms people, ‘Telecom’ is a bit of a dirty word
• FCC, Pai, Big Telco are the dirty words!
• T-Mobile describes itself as uncarrier (unTelco)
o We’ve made it too complex, and generally acted individually in raising market
awareness – we can not do it alone
• So what should we do?
o I think we need a logo for programmable telecoms (like 5G) – to help us all
promote the category
o Working together can we help accelerate awareness of programmable telecoms,
a common theme through everyone’s marketing plans

38. Benefits of getting involved in TADHack
• You’ll be part of the world’s largest hackathon over one weekend
o Largest telecom-focused hackathon since 2014 (when we started)
• Hiring: meet many local, world-class, motivated people
• Brand awareness & thought leadership: supporting or running
locations
• Business development: discover joint business opportunities
• Learning: new technologies, problems faced in other industries /
communities
• Make friends and have fun: TADHack is an intense experience
• TADHack provides continuous collateral (all pitches are recorded)
and promotion for those who take part.

39. 2016

40. 2015

41. 2014

42. TADSummit, 14-15 Nov, Lisbon
• TADSummit is The Programmable Telecoms global event
o Telecoms is now programmable, almost every aspect of Telecoms can be an app, like the Web
o Contextual communications, conversational CRM and BOTs, M2M and IoT, telecom APIs and WebRTC,
internal innovation in non-telecom industries, decentralized web, application-to-person comms,
network app stores, enterprise telecom apps, open source telecom, open networks…
o Open, no BS, practice-based, business/strategy, world-first demos, thought-leadership, companies
involved keep being bought!
• Themes include:
o xVNO Service Success.
o Decentralized Web / Decentralized Telecoms / Network App Store / Neutral Hosting.
o Application to Person Service Showcase.
o Programmable Telecoms in the Enterprise.
o Network Services Built for the Cloud.
o Innovation Showcase, led by DataArt.
o Dangerous Demo, led by the inimitable James Body.
o TADHack service successes.
o Ecosystem Action on Programmable Telecoms.
• More info is here: http://blog.tadsummit.com/2017/05/01/tadsummit-2017-planning/

45. Departing Thought
World’s first MVNO began 18 years ago in 1999.
Today virtualization has gone further. No longer need
to own a network OR resell network services.
Its all just IP and you/customers define the services.