Listen to this articleCloudstreet is a cloud based service platform for telecom operators that combines business and network layer technologies to provide context specific bandwidth-on-demand. Cloudstreet bridges the gap between the digital services we all use and the network infrastructure that serves them. Below is our recent interview with the founder & CTO of Cloudstreet, Mika Skarp:
Q: Could you tell us something more about Cloudstreet?
A: Cloudstreet works with the world’s mobile operators to serve business, consumer and government users that demand an improved mobile Internet experience across the gamut of popular and emerging applications. Accessible via our mobile app for Android and iPhone, Cloudstreet lets users to enjoy stable, quality-assured connectivity for data-intensive, bandwidth-hungry apps like OTT video and video conferencing, IoT, wearable health monitors and Augmented Reality as well as vehicle and body cameras employed in public safety and security. In this way Cloudstreet directly addresses one of the key challenges that mobile operators face in delivering a consistent, predictable and indeed enjoyable experience of the mobile Internet amid massive bandwidth demand and shrinking revenues. One of the primary applications of Cloudstreet for consumers, and business and government is the ability to deliver flawless, SLA-assured experiences of so-called “Over the Top” or OTT mobile video. For consumers this would include common IPTV streams like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu and for businesses video conferencing services like WebEx, Skype or Google Hangouts. Anyone who has attempted streaming HD video over today’s mobile networks has likely experienced the frustration of spotty service quality, delays, dropouts and deteriorated picture quality. The same SLA-assurances can be applied to any mobile application, and most critically surveillance in public safety and security, health monitoring devices and even driverless cars, where rock solid mobile connectivity is truly a matter of life and death. In this way, Cloudstreet allows carriers, now for the first time, to deliver a perfect mobile Internet experience for any application, while ensuring the principles and practices of net neutrality.
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Q: Could you explain the function and advantages of Cloudstreet’s Dynamic Profile Controller?
A: This gets quite technical quite quickly, but here goes. Cloudstreet’s Dynamic Profile Controller™ or DPC™ identifies the exact data need for each mobile-internet connected device or application on-the-fly and enables instant and fully-automated network optimisation to serve each end-user’s precise data requirements at any particular moment. At the same time the DPC™ balances overall bandwidth usage within a given cell so as not to affect non-Cloudstreet users’ connections and maintain an optimal user experience across the network. Operating synchronously at the carrier’s network node business service (OSS/BSS) levels simultaneously, the DPC™, allows machine or manual requests for a dynamic (on-the-fly) profile change in a standard LTE Network. This allows devices and applications to directly “speak to the network” to request changes to bandwidth speed and service levels on a per user, per session basis. While balancing and orchestrating device demands within the network to prevent overload, Cloudstreet’s DPC™ engine permits end user devices to transmit self-aware context changes dynamically to allow on-the-fly profile changes and ensure consistent and predictable, SLA-Assured Quality-of-Experience.
Q: What is unique about Cloudstreet and how does it stand out from competition?
A: Cloudstreet radically changes the mobile operator’s business model by allowing carriers for the first time to monetize service quality across multiple tiers of users and the widening spectrum of applications and services they use. Anticipated to be among the defining features of 5G, so-called “Network Slicing”, “Software Defined Networks” (SDNs) and “Network Function Virtualization” (NFV) provide the technological framework for Cloudstreet to revolutionize mobile connectivity at the unique user level and create the world’s first Application-Aware Networks. This will not only dramatically improve mobile customer experience across the board, it will also provide carriers critical new revenue streams from virtually limitless services that can be switched on at will without the headaches of hardware customization that has until now plagued the industry. This is great news for carriers as we’re coming to the market with a customer validated, carrier-tested, proven, patented, platform for dynamic mobile bandwidth delivery on demand which is precisely what the doctor ordered. On the subject of competitors I am glad to say, at least for now, that we are swimming in a big blue ocean with no known rivals or equivalent technologies. Incubated within world-leading telecom technology manufacturer Nokia, Cloudstreet today enjoys a clear path to delivering on one of the core promises of 5G and a key component for its global standardization, and that’s very exciting.
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Q: You’ve recently won Best Connectivity Solution at the World Communications Awards for 2016; tell us something more?
A: We’re thrilled at this award and to have been recognized by such a prestigious organization as WCA and TotalTelecom+ as an industry-leader and innovator. In this important category, Best Connectivity Solution for IoT, we were up against major heavy weights like Huawei and Spirent Communications, and so the competition quite literally couldn’t have been more fierce. We see this win as not just a validation of our hard work over the past few years, but a clear indication that the industry is ready for the positive change that Cloudstreet and application-aware networks will bring. With the top players in telecom taking notice of this relatively tiny company and one very big innovation, we’re seeing doors opening everywhere and indeed a very warm welcome to our vision for the future of mobile.
Q: What can we expect from Cloudstreet in 2017?
A: The coming year promises to be huge for Cloudstreet. Just on the heels of our second round of investment including a major grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 SME instrument, we are moving into the next critical step in our plan, the full scale rollout of Cloudstreet in select markets worldwide. Now past proof of concept phase and with a solid story and timely use cases for OTT IPTV, live video broadcasting, IoT, health tech and Augmented Reality in our library, 2017 will be all about working with carriers to bring new connectivity services to business, consumer and government users. Of course we’ll be sharing our successes with the industry and look forward to major events like the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February, and there we’ll be front and center in the Finnish pavilion demonstrating Cloudstreet’s AR solution with partners Nokia and Sony, as well as the world’s very first fully mobile health monitoring system being developed with GE. I don’t want to give too much away, but certainly we’ll be bringing our peers in the mobile industry some exciting surprises and opening the door to more opportunities working with world-leading technology and service providers. Stay tuned!
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