- Simphonic, formerly Wadaro, leverages SIM/eSIM applets to capture real-time QoE data
- The company commissioned Chetan Sharma Consulting to produce a study, which shows the value of a SIM-based approach
- The analyst concluded that operators who deploy device-side QoE intelligence have a better chance of preventing churn
Simphonic’s origin story isn’t the typical “started in our garage” narrative, but it’s pretty darn close.
It goes something like this. About 20 years ago, software engineer Robert Wakeling was frustrated by the crappy cell phone signal he was getting in his backyard and the wasted hours he spent on the phone with customer service. He was determined to fix it.
In 2005, he founded Wadaro, at the heart of which is the SIM – the subscriber identity module whose primary purpose is to authenticate users’ phones to a mobile network. He and his team developed a tiny software program called a Java applet to gather data about a customer’s quality of experience (QoS). It sits in the SIM, physical or embedded (eSIM).
Today, Wadaro is officially rebranding as Simphonic, where Wakeling’s role is as founder and CTO. The company has a new CEO, Chris Drake, who’s a former SVP and CTO at iconectiv, the U.S. number portability firm that Ericsson recently sold to Koch Equity Development.
Drake told Fierce that Simphonic is working with “multiple” Tier 1 operators around the world, although he declined to name any names because the customers haven’t given permission to go public. Simphonic also recently acquired a significant – though undisclosed amount – of strategic equity investment from NAL Technologies, aka Naltec, to support the marketing of its EdgeQoE platform.
Research confirms SIM-based benefits
Besides a new name and strategic investment, Simphonic today is heralding some new research it commissioned by Chetan Sharma Consulting, which produced a 26-page white paper titled: “SIM – The Nerve Center of Operations in the Age of AI.”
Sharma conducted field tests that included 4,679 device measurements collected over 30 days as part of the report.
The central finding: 40.5% of all device-reported events represented negative experiences – like dropped calls, voice call failures and cell handoff disruptions. Of these bad experiences, 59.4% of the time they occurred in stationary locations, like a home or office.
In other words, these network failures were happening in places where a customer isn’t going to tolerate bad cell phone service for very long, but wireless operators can use this level of detail to fix network issues before a customer leaves.
“This platform provides the ability to understand what's happening at the user level,” Sharma told Fierce. “It provides a more proactive way of managing churn, understanding customer behavior, understanding network behavior – like how a network is behaving in certain areas and how your roaming partners are performing.”
Getting past OEM gatekeepers
Sure, mobile network operators know a lot about their customers based on information they get from the network. However, the white paper argues that the “device edge” is controlled by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Operating System (OS) providers who effectively gatekeep the diagnostic data that operators need to troubleshoot network issues and optimize performance.
With Simphonic’s SIM-based solution, operators don’t need to persuade a device OEM – like Apple or Samsung – to put it into devices. It’s already there.
That said, Fierce wondered if it’s possible an OEM might not want operators to know everything about how their devices are performing. Scott Weller, Simphonic’s chief marketing officer, acknowledged that’s possible, but because Simphonic’s technology is SIM-based, the OEMs have no control over it.
“One of the graceful things about this application is it's on the SIM, and it’s built into common standards,” he said. “In this world where the OSSes have been scraping all the value off the table with app stores and everything else the carriers used to do, in this case, they can't because it’s embedded into the SIM and under operator control.”
Besides providing highly detailed information about QoE, Sharma said Simphonic’s platform can save money for operators who bear the burden when handsets get returned. If they know why returns are happening more quickly and efficiently, they can reduce those costs, he said.
“If they know a particular version or software update on a handset is causing dropped calls or degradation of performance, then they can quickly narrow it down if it’s happening across multiple users,” he said.
Some might argue that the U.S. mobile industry is already at a point where the networks all feel the same, or very similar. But customer experience is directly related to the network, and if an operator can detect bad experiences before a customer churns, that’s better than the alternative.
“Typically, you don’t have the closed loop of understanding why somebody churned until it’s too late,” Sharma said. “Using this data, you have a higher probability of finding who is going to churn in the next month or so.”
Why not just put AI in the phone? “AI running inside a phone is very challenging, with the large language models and the heavy computing that you have to do,” Drake said. “Batteries would not last very long if you actually put AI in a phone, and if you're having trouble attaching to the network, you can't delegate this to AI in the cloud because you're not attached to the network.”
However, if you have an applet in the SIM, it can take measurements no matter where you are – roaming onto another operator’s network, on a satellite or Wi-Fi connection – places where operators are unable to measure QoS because the handset isn’t on their network.
Better than operator drive tests
Simphonic executives said using their platform is cheaper than doing drive testing. Plus, “a drive test doesn’t tell me what coverage is like in my backyard or on the 12th floor a building in downtown Seattle,” Weller said. “This does, so it’s a lot more specific in terms of the subscriber experience.”
According to Simphonic, its platform currently reports billions of network key performance indicator (KPI) data points for Tier 1 wireless carriers worldwide.
No doubt, the company will be using its new white paper to persuade more operators to adopt its platform. Given the competitive environment in wireless these days, operators will probably take a look at anything that helps them keep existing customers – because that’s a lot cheaper than trying to woo new ones.
Note: This story was modified April 21 with an updated title of the report.