C&W Expands Wireless Services With Help From A Pair Of New Pals

Cable & Wireless this week stepped boldly into developing real wire-free offerings on a global scale. Now, if they could only add cable services, its corporate moniker would finally fit the firm.

by ISP-Planet Staff [September 21, 2001]

Global telecom group Cable & Wireless formed an alliance this week with Quios, a leading SMS (Short Message Service) Gateway Provider. The companies intend to meld core technologies in order to deliver a sophisticated series of revenue-generating wireless data services for enterprises, Web portals, ISPs and other telecom carriers.

Reliable, cost-efficient SMS routing has eluded the marketplace to date. Sending SMS notes over the Internet is unpredictable at best. C&W and Quios intend to change this by building a SMS Gateway from Quios' hosting center in San Jose, CA providing IP connectivity through C&W's high-speed global network.

A second gateway will be managed and hosted from C&W's recently opened Paris hosting center. Quios' SMS Gateway provides access to 400 mobile operators around the world. The combination of its technology with C&W's high speed IP network expertise will provide customers with a reliable, global infrastructure upon which they can build truly mobile wireless services.

Andrew McGrath, C&W service providers president, said simply that "our high quality backbone coupled with Quios' leading position in the SMS delivery market place will allow both companies to continue to drive this high growth market."

Pronounced "Kee-Os," the company is actually a part of eWingz Systems, Inc. Quios is a leading mobile services company providing worldwide cross-carrier SMS services from its network that extends to over 400 wireless carriers in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the U.S. It is capable of handling 2-way, 8bit, EMS messaging with end-to-end message tracking and reporting, thanks to its advanced dynamic routing and billing engine.

The Quios Messaging Platform (QMP) is well tested and highly scalable. Since its inception, more than 150 million messages have been sent to over 20 million users. The company has operations in San Francisco, London, and Paris. An eclectic mix of dynamic industry professionals, including Marc Vanlerberghe, chief executive officer and co-founder of the group, manages Quios. Vanlerberghe was Director of Business Development at Proximus, a joint venture between Vodafone and Belgacom, where he was responsible for their Internet and Roaming business units.

Same, but different
In an unrelated deal, C&W secured an agreement with GRIC Communications, Inc. to expand the worldwide reach of its global dialup service, known as Global Dial. The agreement provides an additional channel for GRIC to further extend its reach to enterprise customers while broadening C&W's capabilities for global Internet roaming services.

C&W plants to incorporate GRICtraveler, GRIC's global remote Internet access service, into its global roaming solution set, making C&W a one-stop shop for secure remote access over the Internet—nearly anywhere in the world.

C&W Clients with remote users can access the Internet for the cost of a local call through the GRIC Alliance Network of more than 300 top-tier ISPs and telecom companies in more than 150 countries. GRIC's network coverage currently consists of more than 15,000 dialup locations worldwide. C&W Global Dial service provides local dialup access in more than 160 countries.

Hong Chen, GRIC chief executive officer, said its strategic alliance with C&W represents a natural progression of its growing leadership position as a vital partner to service providers.

"C&W has an attractive solution in its Global Dial service," he added. "We expect that the expansion of their product and service suite to include GRICtraveler will accelerate GRIC's ability to tap into the enterprise market on a worldwide scale."

David Edwards, C&W director of dial access products, echoed the sentiment.

"GRIC is a proven leader in the secure remote Internet access industry, and has the worldwide infrastructure in place to help C&W expand its VPN offerings to global enterprise customers" Edwards said. "By working with GRIC, C&W will add significant value to our Global Dial solution."

GRIC Communications is a leading provider of Internet-based mobile office communications services for ISPs, telecom carriers and enterprise-class clients. A founding member and vice-chair of the WECA sub-committee Wireless Internet Service Provider roaming (WISPr), GRIC continues to promote roaming and remote access via Wi-Fi technology.

—End