In the beginning

I’ve known Robert since he founded Wadaro. Here’s a piece I wrote about Wadaro in 2012. Wadaro have been focused on SIM apps since Robert’s previous company Magic4 was bought by Openwave in 2004.

What prompted Robert to start Wadaro is not having mobile signal at the back of his home. He called the carrier, and they were adamant, based on their data, he should have signal.

So Rob met with the carrier and understood they used tools that only approximated customer experience, for example drive tests. They did not actually measure the experience customer’s received. While using a SIM app he could deliver that data.

Hence Wadaro’s journey. It was Safaricom in Africa that proved his idea and they scaled up across that carrier. Wadaro are a technology and services company, they partner with many SIM companies as their contingency based sales force. Deals are struck directly with carriers and governments.

Given their recent investment Wadaro is moving fast, 2026 is going to be great year for Wadaro!

Investment

Customers have kept Wadaro busy of late, and the big news is they have raised funding. This funding helps Wadaro grow and tackle more customer projects. Throughout Wadaro’s history they have grown and built a defensible world-class SIM app business. This funding enables them to fulfill accelerating demand.

With funding come copycats as they copy a successful funded formula. However, Robert’s view is in-SIM remains niche and the market remains tough given the shift to eSIM. Given the acceleration made possible by companies like RiPSIM, the addressable market is expanding, yet the barriers to be trusted ‘on SIM’ remains high. And that is Wadaro’s most defensible barrier, built over multiple decades.

SIM Boxes and Fake Base Stations

SIM boxes have entered public awareness, because the NYC SIM box find opened many people’s eyes to the scale of operations. 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards. We discussed this in the session “Why has the US PSTN pollution remained so bad? with Alex Quilici, CEO YouMail.“

We’ve covered previously how Wadaro can mine their data to discover SIM boxes. They also did some work on fake base stations, and discovered them next to military bases. Its amazing the insights made possible through Wadaro’s data.

Geotagging & Self-organizing Networks

One of the tags they’ve added to the data is geo-tagging when there is no available GPS data. Access to that data is challenging through Android and Apple, as they want to control access. However, from the network radio signals received, it’s possible to estimate the location. Then add that to the data Wadaro collects.

Robert shared that a business partner is using this geotagging capability for IoT applications right now. The exclusion of GPS on the IoT module enabled the BOM (Bill of Materials) to be only $6.

A figure often quoted for the US drive test cost is $200M; that is vans, people, fuel, etc. I asked Robert if in-SIM will remove that cost? While he was not adamant, adding intelligence in the network should lower that cost and enable an era of self-organizing networks, improving customer experience and optimizing costs. Which is an interesting take on the impact of in-SIM.

Network APIs and Identity

What followed is an interesting discussion starting with SIM swap, and the problem being addressed is authentication between 2 parties. If a customer asks for a new SIM there should be a check on risk signals associated with that customer.

Here Robert is working with a carrier, and raised the issue on whether they would follow a ‘standards’ approach. Rather something more unique. Specifically to the problem, customers have patterns of behaviour, add in quantum safe encryption thanks to Cavero Quantum, Robert’s view is this enables a highly secure and accurate risk signal. Another interesting take on the impact of in-SIM.

2026 Outlook

More of the same as Wadaro has the capacity to meet demand on SIM swap, SIM boxes, fake base stations, etc. And 2 new products: Security (identity), and an all in one yubikey-like product for merchant services. This is a dramatic expansion of Wadaro’s mission, and I wish Robert the best for 2026.

Previous Sessions

September TADSummit 2024 session – great review of the Wadaro architecture and use cases.

Back in March 2024 we did a nice intro piece covering use cases such as:

• Independently proving a vendor has implemented a network to the agreed coverage and performance;
• Regulators confirming coverage and performance targets are meeting those agreed in the license;
• Optimizing network investment to maximize customer experience impact;
• Actually knowing what customers are experiencing with respect to dropped calls, signal level, and data throughput; and
• Detecting SIM farms; intelligence at security incidents, etc.