Sebastian has been part of TADHack and TADSummit since almost the beginning. Here is Sebastian’s hack from TADHack 2024, Global Carrier vCon extension. We kick off Sebastian’s session with Thomas paying respect for what he built, in demonstrating how easy vCon can be integrated with a carrier’s wholesale CPaaS.
You’ll hear reference to TelecomsXChange and how its Transforming the CSP’s Wholesale Business with Ameed Jamous. We’ve had AJ on the TADSummit Podcast as well as TADSummit over the years. Last year we discussed with Telin running TADS at their event. At TADSummit we’re always honest, no BS, and showcasing the best innovations in programmable communications. Sebastian’s slides are here.
What Sebastian has created with SignalWire is winning customers away from Twilio, because of its local focus. See Matteo’s keynote on the importance of local focus in, Conquer the world or win the customer? Matteo Gatta, Founder GenNoor, ex-CEO BICS. The winning strategy is customer focus, and Sebastian has created a great offer.
I really like that Sebastian took the time to define what he meant by Digital. Which has become confusing by its imprecise usage, and plastered on marketing collateral when a service is almost the same as one sold for the past 20 years.
In Sebastians definition:
- Global reach and scaling;
- Online portal access;
- Faster time to market; and
- New revenues.
Sebastian emphasizes this is within the context of wholesale services, where orders are completed on sheets of paper and faxed. That’s still done today. Also they have made it easy for wholesale customers to resell the services, as well as aggregate them, adding value to make it easier for their customers.
One aggregator in 2019 for its SIP trunking required a sales person to be called, nothing was online. I challenged their Chief Transformation Officer to update that experience to be like Twilio’s. That is online, ordered in minutes using a credit card, with many VAS available within the SIP trunk. As of the end of 2024, that transformation has not occured. Well done to DT for achieving that transformation, updating to the web-centric competition.
Sebastian runs through the service portfolio, including portal as a service for reselling. They also have a number of custom apps, such as email to SMS, and least cost routing. Because the platform is programmable its relatively easy to create these custom apps.
An important feature of this platform is the numbers are all direct because they are a carrier, there’s no grey routes or other shenanigans. This is important to brands in these days of rampant AIT and customer privacy. Ensuring customers have clean and compliant services.
Through the portal the full portfolio of services is available, and customers can resell with their own branding. DT partners with other carriers so they can aggregate for example identity. Sebastian reviews how they use their network for most traffic, and have in some cases trusted one hop partners, and their messaging hub includes a firewall, like we saw with BT Group to keep traffic clean.
Their focus on Europe is helping them win customers, like VirtualQ, compared to other solutions running on big tech like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
On AI Agents, this is a work in progress. They integrate with OpenAI, Azure OpenAI and any LLM that follows the OpenAI format. SignalWire has SWAIG (SignalWire AI Gatekeeper) which they are investigating. Currently, the customer makes their AI model decision and can integrate with DT’s WFA (Workflow Automation).
Seeing what Sebastian has achieved is impressive, and I feel TADSummit and TADHack have helped him over the years.
