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Telecompaper: Twenty years of Intersec: our smart data platform simply works" />
For 20 years, Intersec has supported telecom companies and public authorities in collecting and processing of mobile metadata. The French company began in 2004 with a smart SMS platform for marketing purposes and evolved into a major player in telecom metadata and location intelligence. Telecompaper spoke to co-founder and CEO Yann Chevalier about his company's past, present and future. "Our technology simply works," he said.
Who uses your company's data services, and for what?
Yann Chevalier: "We serve three main market segments. We started with telecom companies. They have used mobile data to better understand their customers. This allows them to develop more relevant and personalized marketing, based on usage data and travel patterns. With that data, they improve customer profiles and develop new revenue models.
We also support civil protection authorities, for example with location determination for 112 calls and cell broadcast alarms. We do the latter in France, Germany and Croatia, among other countries. On a map-centric interface, we make location data visible to emergency centers so they can see how many people are in a certain area and how many people have been evacuated within half an hour after the first alert, for example. Moreover, during the corona pandemic our technology was used to monitor movements between regions based on anonymized data.
Our third segment concerns national security, supporting ministries of justice and home affairs. They use our systems, for example, for alibi checks, location determination of suspects and analysis for possible cross-references. Since this involves non-anonymized data, this is done only with judicial authorization. Recently we have also been orienting to new markets, such as companies in logistics and supply chain management and organizations with many expats."
How has Intersec evolved over the past two decades?
"Last December we celebrated our 20th anniversary. The journey began in 2004 with an SMS and MMS messaging service. Back then, you still had to pay per message and it took a long time to fully roll out an SMS campaign. With our service, operators could send their marketing messages much faster: from 100 to 50,000 messages per second. Campaigns that took months could now be completed in a few hours.
Around 2012, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp pushed the market away from SMS services. This made us start focusing on collecting and leveraging mobile data. The idea was that networks are constantly communicating with phones and you get valuable insights if you use this data smartly."
What drives your growth?
"The change of direction in 2012 proved to be a golden opportunity. We have since grown into an international company and today, our extended portfolio of sovereign applications is driving our growth with annual revenues of around EUR 20 million.
We have long-lasting customers who enjoy our services to their satisfaction. Our technology simply works. We process huge amounts of data and offer stable, future-proof solutions. Customers appreciate our reliability. Moreover, with the advent of 5G, and the new data categories it brings, we see opportunities for further growth."
Do you have customers in the Netherlands or Belgium?
"Not at the moment, it hasn't happened yet. The Netherlands started early with cell broadcasting; you were ahead in Europe for a long time. For example, the alert system NL-Alert has been active since 2012. That came just too early for us. We don't yet offer services in Belgium either. This may change within a few quarters. The current alert system there is going to be overhauled and that offers an opportunity to enter the Belgian market.
Although we are a European company, we generate only 30% of our sales in Europe. We are very active elsewhere, mainly in the Middle East, the APAC region and Africa. In a near future, we also plan to expand into Latin America. Our European roots often give us an advantage over competitors in other continents. For example, we are more aware of consumer rights and local legislation."
How is AI changing your company's applications?
"We have been working with AI since 2018, especially deep learning and recently generative AI. GenAI is a huge step forward. Where business analytics used to depend on data scientists, business users now work largely independently with AI assistants. This saves time, reduces the demand on data analysts and enables faster iterations. The reuse of algorithms and full automation for, say, real-time and contextual marketing, offer key benefits. This trend cannot be ignored and has enormous potential.
About a quarter of our revenue goes to R&D, and half of our R&D team focuses on AI. All the research and development work is done at our headquarters in Paris. We also have offices in the Emirates, Singapore and Canada, more focused on sales, client support and local projects."
Finally, what is your expectation for the near future and how do you capitalize on it?
"Besides AI, our main focus over the next five years will be on cloud-native network functions (CNF) and network APIs. CNF is software that performs traditional hardware tasks within Linux containers. Since last September, almost all telecom operators suddenly want to roll out products in containers, for example for network monitoring and contingency plans. We have been working on CNF for some time, so we have a head start in the market. We are also working on standardizing network APIs for applications such as device location for fraud prevention in banks, in line with the CAMARA initiative, an alliance of the Linux Foundation and the GSMA."
About Intersec
Intersec is a global leader in telecom metadata and location intelligence solutions. Designed by fast data experts, our solutions guide governments and telcos in their data-driven revolution to build tangible value, from efficiently warning people in case of danger to driving new sources of revenue. Our 90 clients in 40 countries leverage our instruments to reach, locate, and map nearly one billion connected devices 24/7, and our mission-critical communication solutions cover 400 million people around the world. Headquartered in France, Intersec places Privacy by Design well beyond accepted standards, it assures regulatory compliance, no matter where our clients operate. Learn more at www.intersec.com.
