Do you ever experience problems with your internet connection? Sometimes, when you check, you might find that you can’t connect to networks. If this sounds familiar, then this story will make you reconsider how the telecom market should operate. It’s a story about a company called MotionRay, which is part of VibraniumVC’s portfolio. They are already transforming the way businesses connect to the internet.
The main issue that MotionRay solves is how to provide the user with uninterrupted access to the Internet anywhere in the world, says Anton Shmakov, co-founder of the project. Anton, an ex-employee of Google and LinkedIn, and telecom market professional Alexander Pestryaev came up with his startup with in 2019 and pivoted to its current product at the beginning of 2021.
Let’s go back a few years
The core team had an extensive experience in telecommunications and Radio transmissions. Their first product was in first-mile connectivity for wearable wireless cameras in extremely challenging environments (like an arena with 50k+ attendees). Company solved the problem by changing WiFi protocol and parallelization of multiple link to deliver the most robust signal possible. Motion were forced to consider other applications of the core tech and ideas by COVID as our first product was designed for live events and COVID shut down all live events. We chose Telecoms as we saw an opportunity to introduce our original idea (parallelization of connectivity) in an innovative and disruptive way to a gigantic market.
Problem and solution
The problem is that clients in the telecom market always depend on one communication provider. It doesn’t matter if it’s wired or wireless. The user can still access the infrastructure of only one specific provider — with all the pros and cons that come with that. And if the channel isn’t large enough, or there are areas the signal doesn’t reach, the user invariably has to suffer in silence.
An estimated 37% of the world’s population — or 2.9 billion people — have still never used the Internet.
What MotionRay decided is that if one communication provider has problems e.g. bandwidth, interruptions, instability, it’s necessary to give the client access to another. The startup technology allows you to connect simultaneously to all available communication sources available from your location. “We aggregate all available channels: wireless, wired, satellites, your neighbor’s Wi-Fi. If it allows the network to connect, we can use it,” explains Shmakov.
Currently, some 42 million Americans have no access to broadband, according to Broadband Now, a data technology company.
The team’s main product is LTE: MotionRay aggregates three LTE channels into one, which is comparable in reliability to fiber optics. If one channel drops once a day, then three will fail once every four years.
The product
Now MotionRay is selling a subscription to businesses e.g broadcast studios, bus operators, restaurants, and hospitality for uninterrupted Internet in several markets, the main one being the US. The product includes a router that the team developed and software that allows you to combine different channels of communication. On top of that, all devices come equipped with the necessary SIM cards, so the customers don’t need to communicate with operators. The service also has a proactive support team who monitor all devices in real-time. If the mobile operator starts to get patchy, support jumps in before the user notices.
MotionRay also has a web platform where customers can see all of their connected devices at the same time.
Scaling in US market
MotionRay’s slogan is “the best possible connectivity for the best possible price”. The team wants to improve the quality of communication radically — and the cost, too. In the US, the price per gigabyte can be reduced by 100 times. The only reason this doesn’t happen is the efficiency of the telecom infrastructure and the conjecture of the markets.
If MotionRay succeeds in achieving its goal, the startup will change the lives of millions of people by making access to the Internet open, universal, and fair.