With what it describes as the first clearinghouse of its kind, LightSurf Technologies Inc. hopes to raise the bar on how wireless operators will do business by democratizing the ebb and flow of multimedia traffic.
Its platform, known as GX-MMS, will serve not only as a conduit for first-tier carriers, but also for smaller players in North America and Europe, as well as carriers in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The company said it is in talks and trials with a variety of carriers around the world, but did not disclose with whom.
At the 3GSM World Congress in February, Comverse Inc. announced its interoperability platform to enable communication among protocols, between CDMA, GSM and W-CDMA. Comverse’s system requires carriers to have installed multimedia messaging service centers for its technology to work. LightSurf says an MMSC is optional.
LightSurf lists the features of its GX-MMS platform as reliability, scalability and a flexible outsourced service. The clearinghouse model has a single point of integration; Third Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP2 and Open Mobile Alliance standards compliance; support for all CDMA and GSM networks; advanced message and media transcoding; integrated billing support for cross-operator charging; support for all MMS handsets as well as many legacy non-MMS devices; and guaranteed messaging tracking and delivery.
“It brings MMS capability within the reach of all carriers and solves a lot of interoperability issues,” commented Andrew Seybold, chairman of the Andrew Seybold Group, adding that it also offers carriers the option of outsourcing.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” said Seybold. “MMS interoperability is infinitely more challenging than SMS as it requires the ability to recognize, translate and deliver a multitude of media messages, pictures, videos and audio files in real-time-not just text.”
The idea is to “sign up all MMS operators around the world to a clearinghouse model,” said Robin Nijor, vice president of sales and marketing for LightSurf. “We will connect any and all MMS operators and handle all their traffic.”
Research firm Ovum said it expects global MMS revenues to hit $71 billion in 2007.
Lightsurf aims to focus on three levels of customers: pure MMS-to-MMS carriers; carriers without MMSCs but that crave MMS services, including players in China, India and Latin America; and operators without MMSCs that already offer dynamic media for their consumers. An example of the last customer is Sprint PCS and its relationship with Canadian wireless carrier Bell Mobility. LightSurf handles both carriers’ picture and video messaging even though they do not have MMSCs.
Nijor also said the clearinghouse falls into an industrywide strategy to reduce gear within the network and cut costs and capital expenditures. Software defined radio technology is pushing toward a future where equipment is minimal and software is king.
“GX-MMS helps operators drive higher messaging revenues through rock-solid performance and a radically simple user experience that allows subscribers to share pictures and videos with friends without worrying about which network they use,” said Phillippe Kahn, chief executive officer of Lightsurf.
Nijor said the solution offers carriers, especially the top-tier players, the option to host their MMS services, while the smaller players can do without it and use the gateway offered through the GX-MMS platform.
He said one of the cost-cutting advantages is that it will help carriers cater to their customers with legacy phones until they move to MMS phones. The platform can help both CDMA and GSM consumers with picture-capable phones without pure MMS offerings, he explained.
Comverse’s product also is network agnostic.
LightSurf, formed in 1999, has been a major part of Sprint’s Picture Mail service.
