Local-Made Aexio Pits Itself Against Global Goliaths of Network Optimisation

Network optimisation software solutions for mobile telcos; more specifically those that will collect and analyse data, as well as effect change to the network; is almost a USD1 billion global industry, according to Aexio managing director, Andre Sequerah.

 He admitted that what Aexio does is very niche, “We look at the quality of the networks and cater specifically to optimisation engineers.” The ‘intelligent optimisation’ provider looks at things like drop call rates, bad data throughputs, blind spots and all the other elements that impact a consumers’ mobile network experience. “So we produce software to help these engineers analyse those issues and offer recommendations.”

These recommendations could inevitably reduce network operating costs and unnecessary capital expenditure for telco operators.

Tough playing field

Telecommunications network infrastructure vendors like Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and so on would also offer similar solutions, but these tend to be integrated with their infrastructure hardware, whereas Aexio’s optimisation solutions, Xeus and Xeda, are closer to the end user which in this case is the engineer. The desktop-based Xeus is a unified optimisation platform that supports multiple data source radio frequency (RF) optimisation analysis and tasks. The server-based Xeda is hooked up to the backend and does ‘heavier lifting’ whilst enabling capabilities like automation.

Suffice to say, 7 years ago when their first product Xeda was introduced, it was the first of its kind from Malaysia.  Seven years later, there aren’t (m)any other local telco software providers who have followed Aexio footsteps, and Sequerah mentioned that it is a major challenge trying to get Malaysian customers who are not attuned to buying a local solution, especially when there are global players who are already well-established in the market with over 2 decades of experience.

Aside from Digi Telecommunications who have been their customer right from the very beginning, Aexio has seen some success abroad in countries like Indonesia, the Middle East region and even South America.  Earlier this year, they even won accolades from research house Frost & Sullivan for “New Product Innovation” at the latter’s annual Malaysia Excellence Award.

Ramping up marketing

After having successfully won CIP500 funding from Cradle Fund last year, Aexio has also immersed itself into more marketing activities like attending global tradeshows such as CTIA Wireless and the Mobile World Congress, as well as hosting online webinars.

Sequerah admitted that they have had to slowly phase out their consultancy services in 2008, and now besides just focusing on research and development of their products, they are putting their backs into creating awareness of their brand and solutions. “It had required a change of mindset to focus on marketing too!”

As a result of their R&D, Aexio’s Xeus product is LTE-ready, with Xeda in development to follow suit. Long Term Evolution or LTE, is a fourth-generation network technology, which Malaysia is expected to roll out commercially via at least six service providers, at time of writing.