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That's a good point. They seem to be making the same thing. Didn't really see much difference in the offerings. Though Twilio seems to have a better brand. How

That's a good point. They seem to be making the same thing. Didn't really see much difference in the offerings. Though Twilio seems to have a better brand. How much have they raised over time?

josh2600 13y ago
33.5M so far. Twilio has the best documentation of any Communications API vendor, but their issue when working with large operators is their inability to work inside the corporate firewall. They're on AWS with a lot of servers and it is not a part of their strategy to build a new infrastructure inside of someone else's firewall. Voxeo does build inside the firewall, but they're a lot harder to understand. There's a lot of confusion about who does what in our industry, even Twilio is what I'd describe as an access-innovator. In Telecom the change that's happening right now is the exposure of underlying communications services. Companies like Twilio are taking services like calls, SMS and Video connections and creating APIs to consume these services. Right now, there's no easy way to do these things programmatically. Companies like 2600hz, where I work, take a different approach where we're actually working on the underlying infrastructure (not so much on the API). In this respect a company like Voxeo is much more competitive to Twilio. Callfire is a call-application service and not really competitive to a Twilio or a Plivo. So yeah, lots of stuff going on, very complicated. Most folks are working on the access layers or applications and not the underlying infrastructure.
- orangethirty 13y ago
  85.5 million in funding if this round is to be closed. Chump change to what they are working on cracking open. Like you said, the work they are doing is more on the industry than anything else. Who knows where they might pivot to once telecoms open up a bit more.
  - josh2600 13y ago
    Interesting point: what is Twilio's addressable market in your opinion?
    - orangethirty 13y ago
      I don't know the market that well, aside from doing some analysis on some of the telco securities (for my own use). Though they seem to be building themselves to be a next-gen telco.
      - josh2600 13y ago
        That's what I thought at first, but they're not. Next-gen telco has a lot more hardcore infrastructure; Twilio is building next-gen DEVELOPER infrastructure, which is a huge addressable market but < than all of Telco. So how big is their market? Certainly >$1B but <$10B in the next 3 years. After 3 years though it could start to eclipse the greater telco ecosystem. It's tough; I'd say there's some potential for them to build next-gen Telco, but I think they're more concerned with Next-Gen APIs than core infrastructure. My $.02.
        orangethirty 13y ago
        Yes, exactly. A next gen telco will simply use the infrastructure that is already there. No need to re-invent the wheel. It is paid off and profitable. All the next-gen telco needs to do is simply open it through APIs. That would allow them to circumvent a lot of the issues with doing a completely new telco from the gound up.
        josh2600 13y ago
        Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that. There's a whole web of glass and conduit that has to be maintained. Someone still has to link all of those nodes together. Twilio can consume the application business, but I'd be surprised to see them consume the core infrastructure.
        orangethirty 13y ago
        That's what the infrastructure owner will do. It might be the old telcos, it might be the government, or even a new type of utility company. The infrastructure will be maintained. Though the new type of telco can operate with the old ones. They will simply buy them out.

That's a good point. They seem to be making the same thing. Didn't really see much difference in the offerings. Though Twilio seems to have a better brand. How much have they raised over time?

josh2600 13y ago

33.5M so far. Twilio has the best documentation of any Communications API vendor, but their issue when working with large operators is their inability to work inside the corporate firewall. They're on AWS with a lot of servers and it is not a part of their strategy to build a new infrastructure inside of someone else's firewall. Voxeo does build inside the firewall, but they're a lot harder to understand. There's a lot of confusion about who does what in our industry, even Twilio is what I'd describe as an access-innovator. In Telecom the change that's happening right now is the exposure of underlying communications services. Companies like Twilio are taking services like calls, SMS and Video connections and creating APIs to consume these services. Right now, there's no easy way to do these things programmatically. Companies like 2600hz, where I work, take a different approach where we're actually working on the underlying infrastructure (not so much on the API). In this respect a company like Voxeo is much more competitive to Twilio. Callfire is a call-application service and not really competitive to a Twilio or a Plivo. So yeah, lots of stuff going on, very complicated. Most folks are working on the access layers or applications and not the underlying infrastructure.

orangethirty 13y ago
85.5 million in funding if this round is to be closed. Chump change to what they are working on cracking open. Like you said, the work they are doing is more on the industry than anything else. Who knows where they might pivot to once telecoms open up a bit more.
- josh2600 13y ago
  Interesting point: what is Twilio's addressable market in your opinion?
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    I don't know the market that well, aside from doing some analysis on some of the telco securities (for my own use). Though they seem to be building themselves to be a next-gen telco.
    - josh2600 13y ago
      That's what I thought at first, but they're not. Next-gen telco has a lot more hardcore infrastructure; Twilio is building next-gen DEVELOPER infrastructure, which is a huge addressable market but < than all of Telco. So how big is their market? Certainly >$1B but <$10B in the next 3 years. After 3 years though it could start to eclipse the greater telco ecosystem. It's tough; I'd say there's some potential for them to build next-gen Telco, but I think they're more concerned with Next-Gen APIs than core infrastructure. My $.02.
      - orangethirty 13y ago
        Yes, exactly. A next gen telco will simply use the infrastructure that is already there. No need to re-invent the wheel. It is paid off and profitable. All the next-gen telco needs to do is simply open it through APIs. That would allow them to circumvent a lot of the issues with doing a completely new telco from the gound up.
        josh2600 13y ago
        Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that. There's a whole web of glass and conduit that has to be maintained. Someone still has to link all of those nodes together. Twilio can consume the application business, but I'd be surprised to see them consume the core infrastructure.
        orangethirty 13y ago
        That's what the infrastructure owner will do. It might be the old telcos, it might be the government, or even a new type of utility company. The infrastructure will be maintained. Though the new type of telco can operate with the old ones. They will simply buy them out.