Mobile broadband gateway developer Stoke Inc. said it deployed its 100th mobile gateway earlier this week, less than two years after shipping its first commercial system. The company expects to deliver its 200th system by the end of the year, said President and CEO Vikash Varma.
“We’ve experienced hock-stick growth, which we’re proud of because the components market has been tight. We can’t tie up too much cash so we need to be as close as possible to just-in-time with inventory,” Varma added.
The company offers a Stoke Session Exchange gateway, first deploying the solution with NTT DoCoMo in Japan for a femtocell solution, and in January, winning an LTE contract with DoCoMo. Indeed, DoCoMo has invested in the company, which recently completed $25 million in series D funding round. Noted venture-capitalist firms Kleiner, Perkins Caulfield and Byers and Sequoia Capital also have invested in Stoke. Varma said that the last time those two VCs invested in the same company the investment was in Google Inc. Indian operator Reliance Communications also has invested in the company after deploying its solution.
ABI is predicting a 100-fold increase in data traffic by 2015, Varma said. Wireless networks are struggling to meet today’s data demands and the expected future data explosion because 3G networks simply were not designed to handle all that traffic. “It doesn’t matter how efficient Facebook video chat is if 500 million Facebook friends are video chatting at the same time. This is what is driving the mobile broadband network,” Varma said.
Network systems designed 10 years ago were built for a “nicer time” when operators were able to better predict traffic on the network. Going forward, operators face won’t necessarily be able to predict what application or device will drive traffic. “Apple and Android have up-ended the market.”
Because of that, operators are trying to respond to dramatic growth with usage-based billing models but that likely won’t work until end users understand what a gigabyte means. Instead, operators need to optimize the network by offloading traffic from the mobile core, Varma said. Stoke’s solutions address key areas of the network, offloading data with Wi-Fi, femtocells, LTE network gateways and non-intrusive Iu-PS breakout. The gateway solution also provides seamless transition between 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi technologies. “Our approach is different because we have no legacy product that we have to build from. It helps businesses cross over from the limitations from how they’ve done things years ago.”
The gateway product sits between the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the core network, diverting the session to the nearest Internet Protocol point. Varma said the Stoke Session Exchange solution addresses the problem “surgically,” noting that AT&T Mobility’s network congestion occurs on the West and East coasts, so the operator only needs to address the problem in those regions, not nationwide.