How has your market segment evolved over the past year and what trends have fueled those  changes?

We operate in the telephone service provision space as service provider and carrier for both wholesale carrier services to Tier1 and Tier2 carriers for call termination by direct routes to countries in Africa and China  and retail telephone services by way of managed services through a network of resellers in worldwide countries markets.

In the past year, the contraction of the global economy coupled with the oversupply of network capacity and the increasing number of new players in the space have caused a sharp decline in  the per minute rates for call termination  to almost all dialcodes.  This has resulted in a reduction in overall revenue and profit in absolute amounts.

3G data service for access to the Internet and WiFi (News - Alert) hotspots are becoming widely available in all industrialized countries and even in countries with emerging markets. With it a new opportunity has emerged for the introduction of IP based voice services and low-cost data service to cater to the needs of users of iPhone (News - Alert), Blackberry and Smartphones in the mobile roaming mode.

The advent of Apps for any imaginable applications and facility has fueled the demand for more bandwidth and great volume of data transfer in all situations worldwide.  

What do you see as the next disruptive force in technology and how will it impact your market or business?

The next disruptive technology in the ICT space for applications, that cater to certain practical business and personal requirement,  is/will be one that  makes  operations and services run more time and cost efficiently without requiring the build-out of new infrastructure. It has to be better software and not more hardware or new hardware.

There are great possibilities for such development: one of them is to make web- conferencing and collaboration software run with TV set-top boxes and broadband data services now available to the homes to make use of the large LCD or Plasma screens in the homes for display.

We are working on such a project.

How has the acceptance and adoption of the cloud model influenced your development cycle and process?

We have been doing Cloud Computing in the form of (Service) Platform as a service P-a-a-S since 2003 in offering our IP-based telephone service provision in a Managed Service model to resellers of our various services in worldwide markets.

We are working on development project that makes use of Infrastructure-as-a-Service to cut short development cycle and to cut back on development costs.

We have developed and are providing facility that is Cloud Computing in the form of Infrastructure-as-a-Service to various strategic partners in providing direct routes for call termination in various countries.

What is the most common request you are seeing from your customers? How is your company addressing these demands?

Better service at low costs/rates. We strive to meet such demand by managing various moving parts, namely

• Better technology – faster operation that requires less bandwidth
• Data service at lowest possible cost per MegaByte of data transfer – service offer made in cooperation with Mobile Network Operator able to provide  such data service at the desired low cost
• Better enabling devices that requires little or no change in the way the user currently uses their mobile station devices – mobile handsets that are “locked” to using the SIM and service of a certain mobile operator who offer the mobile handset to the user at greatly subsidized reduced low price.

How is the continued growth of social media changing service and product development strategies?

Our products, solutions and services must now be able to take advantage of the various social media and network for efficient distribution and business propagation. Our business development and technology development effort are guided by this requirement.

Will Google+ become bigger than Facebook and Twitter? Why or why not?

Yes. Google+ will become bigger than Facebook and Twitter.  The large following of Google will enable Google+ to catch up with Facebook and Twitter on a fast track and many Facebook and Twitter users would want to take advantage of the many more service and software facilities that Google can offer as part of the integration of Google+ with rest of Google’s vast resources.

As businesses continue their move toward virtual workforces, how are you meeting the need for increased mobility?  What barriers are keeping others from adopting mobile strategies?

There is increasingly a demand for low-priced affordable mobile in-country and mobile roaming data and voice services that are easy for adoption and simple to use. We provide both the solution and the data transport service at extremely low price per MegaByte of data transfer in a pay-per-use billing model.

Such data transport service enables the end user to continue to use their iPhone, Blackberry and Smartphone for email and browsing without suffering exorbitant high-cost of Internet data service through 3G mobile network

We have developed mobile dialer app that is complete with effective data encryption and optimized for byte saving in doing IP telephony. 

The needs for low-cost Internet access for data transfer and voice communication while mobile roaming of the mobile worker / actor of today are now met to a large extent with our solution and services. 

How do you see the mobile operating system war (iPhone vs. Android vs. RIM vs. WM7) playing out?

Each of the Mobile OS has certain intrinsic functionality that is designed for addressing and catering to certain kinds of users in a certain market/application space.

In the final analysis, the war is won by virtue of one’s overall business strategy for product development and distribution. The design of the mobile OS can be a limiting factor or an advantage in enabling and achieving a successful business strategy.

Is HTML5 the game changer many predict it will be?

HTML5 can very well be the game changer,  considering the increasing importance of the mobile culture in all realms of human activity. It is a safe prediction  - at least for now.

What are you most looking forward to at ITEXPO West in Austin? What do you see as being the biggest trends at the show?

The showing will all be trending towards innovations in technology, application, infrastructure and managed services that support the mobile actors and mobile roaming actors for their business and personal needs.

Who should visit your booth at ITEXPO and why?

Everyone attending ITEXPO West 2011 should visit our stand to see what we have to offer in meeting the pre-requisite conditions for a successful mobile business for data and voice communication service catering to business and personal users.

The most important criteria are low affordable cost in terms of per MegaByte of data transfer  and the ease of use and adoption by the user in all situations of mobile in-country and mobile roaming.

To find out more about Ecocarrier, Inc., visit the company at ITEXPO West 2011. To be held Sept. 13-15 in Austin, TX,  ITEXPO is the world’s premier IP communications event. Visit Ecocarrier, Inc. in booth #614. Don’t wait. Register now. 

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