“Our global expansion is really customer driven. Blue Wireless serves global enterprises and the fact that we can serve them wherever their business takes them is a key value for them.”
Telecom Review Asia Pacific had the pleasure of speaking to Ivan Landen, the CEO and founder of Blue Wireless about the company’s expanding footprint, the future of 5G and its focus on providing high quality services to its ever-growing customer base.
Could you tell our readers about the company’s background and journey so far?
Absolutely! We started Blue Wireless back in 2015 to make wireless communications reliable, simple and cost-effective for enterprise customers. Having worked in the managed network services space my entire career, I know the pain first-hand which companies face to connect their branches to the WAN, with high cost and long lead-times for wired lines.
By leveraging 4G/LTE, we are cutting the delivery time by 90%, offering on-demand SD-WAN connectivity as a flexible cost-effective alternative to wired connectivity. Since our launch in 2016 our customer base has exploded and we have grown the team with offices in Australia, Malaysia and last year in Netherlands, to serve customers in Europe.
But we are not stopping there. Together with our technology partner Cradlepoint we are now enabling other service providers across Asia to launch 4G/LTE based wireless SD-WAN connectivity for their corporate customers.
Blue Wireless has expanded its service coverage significantly over the last years to now include 55 countries in Asia Pacific and Europe. What was the motivation behind this move?
Our global expansion is really customer driven. Blue Wireless serves global enterprises and the fact that we can serve them wherever their business takes them is a key value for them.
For some of our corporate customers we first started serving them in one or two countries and then gradually added more and more locations for them, offering consistency in the service globally.
The fact that Blue Wireless leverages multiple 4G/LTE networks per country means we can always select the best possible connection for their needs. Combined with our central management using Cradlepoint NetCloud, it means we offer peace of mind with a fully managed service across 55 countries globally.
Considering that the Asia Pacific region is made up of countries with diverse socio-economic backgrounds, how can Blue Wireless tackle the different demands/needs of each market?
The countries across Asia Pacific are quite different in many aspects, but one thing unites them; 4G wireless connectivity is everywhere! In fact, some of the developing countries such as Myanmar or Vietnam have excellent 4G/LTE infrastructure as they were able to do a ‘technology leap’ and use the latest technologies for their networks, so fast 4G is a given
For our corporate customers, the key element we offer is service consistency, so no matter they need a service in Hong Kong or in Ho Chi Minh or in Holland, they can rely on us. We offer guaranteed fast installation and our pricing structure is also based on fixed monthly charge, so there is no usage overage or bill shock.
This year Blue Wireless was listed as one of the Fastest Growing Companies in Singapore by Straits Times and in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in Asia Pacific, so we are certainly delivering something that companies want!
How do you think 5G will fare in the future seeing that 4G/LTE still has quite a strong presence in supporting digital transformation and business continuation?
The introduction of 5G will enable a range of new exciting applications from Augmented Reality to E-Sports to Autonomous vehicles, but it will also facilitate more mundane but critical communication requirements such as corporate branch connectivity for retailers.
The good thing about all this investment in 5G is that that wireless will become the primary communication option for the future, both reliable and affordable and that is good for every business.
How is Blue Wireless reviving its own business model to prepare for 5G adoption and to deliver this to the region?
For Blue Wireless, our key element is offer reliable, consistent service to our corporate customers and 5G will certainly play a key role in this.
As a Virtual Network Operator, we leverage local 4G and 5G networks so we are able to mix and match the best of what’s available.
We are targeting to use our first 5G commercial services in second half of this year, so we will keep you posted!
