Eddie and Johnny have known each other since Iris Wireless, back in 2012. To welcome Eddie on the podcast, Johnny got a new shirt, “shush EDDIE IS TALKING”.

Johnny shared the crazy situation Iris was in as he took over. MetroPCS, its main customer, was moving to another aggregator. Johnny also pointed out Eddie is the reason he is in the messaging today, he persuaded him Iris had value, they hunkered down with Rick Joyce to win an antitrust lawsuit against Syniverse. A very rare loss for Syniverse. Eddie also highlighted he’d also left Iris, and was brought back. So Iris brought them together in messaging.

Then Eddie brought tyntec into the picture, and using Iris wireless’s agreements enabled tyntec to raise a round of financing that brought some of the tyntec management team back after they were fired. This does sound like a frenetic round of musical chairs.

Johnny makes an important point on how Eddie helped many people in the industry through the reorganizations. How that reputation has enabled Eddie to his current success with Shush, earning him the nickname “fast Eddie.” For his speed of execution.

At the end of this podcast is the Shush presentation Eddie gave at Mobile World Congress this year, which greatly impressed Johnny.

Johnny breaks the news that Twilio has signed a deal with Shush for their network API authentication. Eddie, shared that they have a global partnership to work together to accelerate the adoption of Network Authentication APIs This is not just SNA (Silent Network Authentication), this is across all network Authentication APIs (potentially beyond Camara, e.g. age verification).

What Shush offers is a cloud agnostic / managed SaaS Network Authentication platform that enables carriers to securely run, integrate, and expose network APIs through a range of channels. Twilio’s motivation is to help accelerate the supply of MNOs offering APIs, while Shush is removing the pain MNO’s face in launching new services.  

It’s similar to Google Cloud’s API management platform, Apigee. The Shush Sherlock solution will allow MNOs to have a real API business. There’s clearly an existence proof, and Shush is removing some of the barriers such as equipment cost, business operations, legal, privacy, security, and integrations. Up to this point I’d assumed Shush was just another SNA, clearly it is not.

Shush CTO is Wesam Qaqish, who I know from Telesign, and their CPO is Jon Morrow, previously from T-Mobile, has a great security track record. Based on all Eddie’s carrier discussions he knew the yawning gap that needs to be crossed for carrier action in network APIs. Eddie also did his due diligence, for example, chatting with the ex-CEO of AT&T, John Donovan about Shush.

They incorporated on Feb 2nd 2024. While attending MWC Eddie did an interview that was published shortly after, and with that Eddie discovered Shush was publicly announced. With several POCs (Proof of Concept) agreed they needed cash, so did a preseed, targeting $500k, which ended up being $1M within 45 days. Hence the nickname fast Eddie. And with the POCs the product delivered was not a MPV (Minimum Viable Product), it was GA (General Availability). Testament to the product and engineering teams.

Johnny reiterated the importance of the Shush / Twilio announcement, as up until that point Twilio was not involved with Camara. With the Shush announcement, the largest programmable telecoms company, Twilio, is now involved in Network APIs.

Eddie came back to what is driving change in the industry. The recent T-Mobile settlement for $33M. This ruling was kept under wraps since the fall of 2023 and T-Mobile attempted to keep details of its security failures sealed. The attack targeted Joseph “Josh” Jones and resulted in the theft of over 1,500 Bitcoin and roughly 60,000 Bitcoin cash – at the time valued at $38 million.

The theft was carried out on February 21, 2020, after a T-Mobile employee ported Jones’ phone number to a SIM card in the attacker’s control. The going rate for such a port is about $1000.

This announcement will force the carriers’ to move away from OTP (One Time Passcodes) over SMS. As that $33M settlement will attract a wave of lawsuits.

Johnny then checked his understanding on Shush versus Ericsson / Nokia. There is no equipment cost, only rev share with Shush. Shush offers some options on consultation based, fully managed, and hybrid where the carrier takes over control as they get up to speed.

The discussion gets more animated as we discuss who sells the service, here Shush focuses on the carrier lane and only the carrier lane. If carriers want to sell, Shush will support. If Twilio or another partner sells, they support. It’s a neutral model. Their view is to let the bank, brand, enterprise decide.

Shush covers the platform, carrier integration, and business operations: legal, privacy, security, pricing, etc. all in full partnership with the carrier. Shush doesn’t make the decision on anything, they consult with the carrier on every aspect of the service.  In my experience the business operations is where things get snarled up with carriers. So this can remove some of the blockages that killed OneAPI. I asked about whether Experian could be a target, and Eddie’s response is yes, we represent the carrier. If Experian needs access we can supply. Back to what I said earlier, a neutral model.

Eddie makes a critical point on the relationship with their partners. The problem the industry faces is a supply problem. The number of carriers working with SNA vendors has been suck at 70 for years and only 33 carriers worldwide have launched some form of GSMA Open Gateway Network Auth and there are 1000+ carriers. Shush is making it easier for carriers to work with many more aggregators, and similarly aggregators to work with many more carriers. Breaking the supply problem.

I like Eddie’s focus on making network APIs a success. That is the key, and that remains my concern. The neutral model, API flexibility, and ability for a carrier to hand over the business operations, at least initially could solve the ‘analysis paralysis’ that killed OneAPI over one decade ago.