Ascom spin-off makes “Swiss quality” its brand

SwissQual's software helps operator make sure that subscribers get high quality service (nokia.com) swissinfo.ch

SwissQual AG is making a name for itself by selling systems that test and measure the quality of speech transmission in mobile and fixed networks.

The firm is a spin-off of the Swiss telecommunications equipment vendor, Ascom.

The Zuchwil-based firm was founded three years ago, employs 23 people, is profitable, and has carriers, such as Italy’s Vodafone Omnitel, and equipment vendors, such as Nokia as customers.

It is a classic spin-off story – a team of disgruntled employees set up shop down the street from their old employer. It is a different from some of the “cleave outs” of Ascom that make the newspaper headlines when divisions are sold off to satisfy stockholders’ demand for growth and concentration on “core” activities.

The founders of SwissQual were frustrated with the length of time it took to make management decisions at Ascom, plus they wanted to expand the product line to include voice-over-Internet and data services, but their employer did not.

Quality of service software and hardware is a SFr 200 million ($145 million) a year market business. It is a niche market, but it is growing. The Ascom department that SwissQual departed from continues to report high growth figures for its competing Qvoice product, a sign that the market is expanding.

Testing and measuring of speech quality is done in a number of ways, such as “drive testing” where the measurement equipment is stored in a van and the engineers drive to various parts of the network and make phone calls using mobile phones.

There are also portable systems were testers will carry a backpack full of testing equipment and make calls while walking in buildings or on trains.

“Almost every mobile and fixed network operator needs to know how well their services are performing,” says Harald Klaus, a manager of a quality lab at T-Systems.

Mobile phone users have become accustomed to having voice services anywhere and anytime and they become irate when their calls are dropped or suffer from interference during a call. As a result operators have a focus on quality of service.

It has become a key means of competing in the mobile communications market and avoiding “churn”, or customer cancellations, in telecommunications.

In addition, the advent of third generation cellular networks, which support video and multimedia services, is creating demand for further development of the original testing systems.

“In mobile networking alone, there is a plethora of new services, such as MMS, GPRS and 3G — all will have to be tested for quality,” Tomas Ahnebrink, co-founder SwissQual and head of marketing.

Data services will have as high a demand for call completion and high quality connections as voice.

Competition is concentrated amongst a handful of suppliers. “In Europe, the main competitors are Ascom, with QVoice, and Swissqual with seven.five for testing digital celluar networks,” says Jens Berger, from the International Telecommunications Union.

Valerie Thompson

“Further drive test tools are available from Ericsson with TEMS, and Nokia’s NEMO technologies,” adds the ITU expert.

SwissQual received a small round of equity capital, about $1.25 million in 2001 from Comarco, a US-based equipment vendor specialized in wireless and its customer.