Anthony Stiso, vice president of marketing and sales at Telinta will be at ITEXPO (News - Alert) Miami later this month moderating the “Innovative Mobile Solutions for Global Communications” panel Jan. 27 at 2 p.m.

Telinta offers white-label cloud-based solutions enabling telecom service providers to offer VoIP services, without deploying their own billing and operational support systems. The company’s TeliCore hosted platform does rating, billing, routing, reporting, and provides self-care portals. Clients also can leverage the capabilities of multiple carriers and other third-party providers for DIDs, E911, taxation and other services directly from Telinta’s hosted platform.

TMCnet recently interviewed Stiso of Telinta to get his thoughts about recent industry developments and trends in the mobile arena and communications at large. Here’s an excerpt.

You said that mobile VoIP, cloud-based solutions, and white-label solutions are the three areas that defined the technology landscape in 2014. Explain.

Stiso: Mobile VoIP is one of today’s most attractive business opportunities. Mobile VoIP traffic passing through Telinta’s hosted softswitch platform grew by over 30 percent in 2014. This growth will pick up even more steam with global trends like more ubiquitous Wi-Fi, advances in LTE (News - Alert), and other things that will promote the use of OTT voice applications. Service providers that add mobile VoIP to their existing offer via a mobile softphone app have a competitive edge over those who do not.

Using the power of the cloud, any telecom business – large or small – can offer VoIP services without owning or operating their own infrastructure. This means launching a new business without capital investment. The power of the cloud lets service providers start a profitable telecom businesses easily, rapidly expand their portfolio of services, all with the scalability they need to grow over time.

White-label solutions are growing in popularity, and the ability for our service provider customers to brand services is key to win both end users and resellers. It also means that VoIP providers can offer services under a variety of brands Proctor and Gamble style. This is especially important to calling card providers [that] target different communities who call their home country. Telinta sees white-label solutions as our core business.

How have technology innovations changed work in the past two years?

Stiso: Advances in mobile technology have enabled us to do some truly amazing things in the MVNO arena, where we use cost-effective VoIP to replace high-cost GSM termination from mobile operators. Our TeliSIM MVNO solution integrates GSM technology into our hosted softswitch platform, enabling our customers to offer highly profitable global roaming services for travelers. Just as low-cost VoIP reshaped the fixed line telecom business, innovative solutions like TeliSIM that integrate GSM and VoIP will disrupt the MVNO market. It is only a matter of time until history repeats itself. The profit margins for this solution are just too great to go unnoticed. 

What is the best mobile device on the market?

Stiso: I personally prefer iOS devices, such as the iPhone 6, based on Apple’s (News - Alert) seamlessness across devices for apps, features and interfaces. The iPhone 6 is small enough, yet big enough, to do everything I need. With iCloud, I can easily share contacts and other data between my iPhone and iPad, so I am not held captive to any single device. While iOS is my own personal preference, it is important to Telinta customers that we support a wide variety of devices and platforms. For example, when we introduced our TeliGlobe mobile softphone solution at last year’s ITEXPO, we included both Android and iOS. Supporting both Android and iOS is important to our VoIP service provider customers around the world.

In terms of productivity, what is the most useful app you use on a regular basis?

Stiso: We also use both of Telinta’s softphone solutions regularly, both our mobile for Android and iOS, and our desktop softphone application for Windows. Instant messaging also lets us communicate internally with team members quickly and efficiently. 

How is Telinta benefitting from unified communications?

Stiso: Unified communications is among the key solutions we offer to VoIP service providers, and we support a variety of popular UC solutions. UC is one the top solutions requested by many of our customers and to the end users they support. Internally, Telinta benefits greatly when team members can communicate and collaborate in a fast and efficient way. UC is one of many productivity tools we use to serve customers. Because we are users of UC solutions, we better understand the needs of our customers.

What do you think of Microsoft’s (News - Alert) decision to rebrand Lync as Skype for Business?

Stiso: Like any branding decision, there are pros and cons to consider. The Skype (News - Alert) brand name is well known around the world, perhaps more so than Lync. But there are risks as well, since Skype is primarily known as a free service. Skype may not have the same brand image for security and reliability that businesses demand. If anyone has the resources to rebuild a brand, it’s Microsoft. Reshaping a brand’s perception to win business customers will require significant investment and time.

How frequently and in what cases do you use video for business communications?

Stiso: Video is an important part of the way we communicate with customers, especially when explaining the many features and options for the hosted solutions we offer. Examples of areas where we use video are explaining our solutions for MVNO, our Distributor Interface for Calling Cards, and of course in discussing the many aspects to our TeliCore hosted softswitch platform. Since Telinta serves customers around the world, we also found that video is an excellent medium for communicating across cultures and languages. We also recognize that video is growing in importance in business communications. Our hosted softswitch platform supports video telephony for video-capable endpoints. Our TeliCore softswitch platform is codec transparent, so as long as both endpoints can support video and are codec-compatible with each other, we can support them.

What do you think about WebRTC and its prospects for the future?

Stiso: I think we need more time to see how WebRTC develops. In general, today’s WebRTC is still fairly limited in what it can provide.

What do all the recent high-profile network breaches tell us about digital security?

Stiso: Telinta sees security as a vital part of the telecom business. At no extra cost to our customers, Telinta integrated a suite of advanced security measures that enable VoIP service providers to not only detect common threats like Brute Force attacks, but to also allow customers to proactively restrict the IP addresses which are allowed to access Telinta's switch. We announced TeliShield at last year’s ITEXPO as a powerful real-time deterrent to intrusions. Many attendees of the show were eager to discuss it with us.

How useful can wearable technology be in the enterprise?

Stiso: It is only a matter of time until enterprises supply employees with wearable technology in addition to, and someday perhaps even in place of laptops, tablets, and cellphones. Wearables will enable employees to conduct business in new ways, and thus will be a win-win for both the enterprise and the service providers who offer innovative communications solutions. Wearables will create incremental revenue for service providers, since they will enable end users to communicate in new ways, whenever and wherever they need, without even needing to pull a device out of their pocket. 

Does the U.S. need net neutrality? 

Stiso: Freedom of choice is vital for the Internet telephony industry to grow, and for innovative new services to flourish. If larger telecom providers were allowed to discriminate against VoIP traffic, they have the power to stifle growth. That would have ripple effects throughout every part of the IP telephony ecosystem.

For more on all the latest technology and trends happenings, be sure to register to attend ITEXPO, the business technology event that brings together service providers, enterprises, government agencies, resellers, vendors and developers to demo, discuss and network all the latest innovations changing the marketplace. ITEXPO is being held January 27-30, 2015, at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida.   Stay in touch with everything happening at the event – follow us on Twitter.