This month we are celebrating an anniversary at Roscom. It’s 15 years since the company was set up and it has never been a more interesting time to be in the telecoms sector. So I thought I’d take a look back and a look forward at the industry. It’s been quoted as being worth around £40bn to the UK economy. We’re proud to be part of it.
It’s hard to believe it was 15 years ago we started Roscom. Born out of the aerospace engineering business Rotadata, it was the heir to outstanding innovative design technology. In 2003 it was decided the company should stand on its own. Rotadatato focus on aerospace. Roscom on telecoms.
Our aerospace background gave us far more than just a knowledge of the inside of a Rolls Royce engine. It allowed our own design engineers to use what we had learnt about calibration and measurement to build equipment which accurately measures to within +/-100ms for voice, +/-1 byte for data.
It means we are absolutely sure the measurements we are taking have integrity. After all there is no point in having figures if you cannot verify their accuracy. We’re not the only company which offers test call generation to watch the revenue. But we are still the only telecoms company which uses calibrated measurement to ensure the sums add up. That’s thanks to our aerospace background.
Of course fifteen years ago much of our work was underpinning what BT was providing in terms of accurate measuring and testing their call provision and use. Now we are very much in the global mobile market.
We’re supporting mobile phone companies in Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pac, USA and Europe as well as the UK. But its not just about phone calls any more. Deloitte produced a fascinating report on how we use mobiles in the UK.
As I have mentioned before, in many parts of Africa, mobile money has been a game changer. The access to the internet via mobiles has also given communities an insight into the wider world through news and information. The number of free ways to communicate i.e. WhatsApp, Messenger etc, the variety of media from blogs to video, photos and live streaming have made us more connected than ever before. And we must not forget Facebook and other social media.
Helping companies identify, measure and quantify the end to end real view of subscriber use is no longer just about phone calls. Now there is data too and it all needs to be 100 per cent accurate.
We’ve just launched a new Control Suite to provide telecoms companies with the most rigorous method of measuring data and calls. It’s part of our ongoing research and development to support businesses in the ever-changing world of mobile use and is available installed or managed.
The other part of the business we are immensely proud of is our work with the emergency services. We started in this sector when Roscom was part of Rotadata www.rotadata.co.uk . Our role has been to work with the police and other blue light services to encourage independent testing of networks both in the uplink and downlink i.e. transmissions out and transmissions in. It’s involved walking, driving, flying and sailing more than a million miles to test everything from private prime ministerial residencies and royal quarters to football stadia, airports, shopping malls and hospitals.
All key staff are security vetted and approved. Most recently we exhibited at the BAPCO conference in Coventry.
No-one was in any doubt over how vital it is nowadays to keep the emergency services on air and able to communicate.
None of the work we do could happen without our great team of innovators. Many of the staff who were with us when we were part of Rotadata are still with us today. We’re looking forward to the next 15 years. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
Pass the birthday cake.
