Telecom Review spoke with Luke Deryckx, CTO of Ookla, who shared the company’s efforts in providing world-class network intelligence and connectivity insights that are crucial to enhancing the consumer connectivity experience.
From a technical perspective, how do you ensure the security, consistency and reliability of Ookla's network intelligence?
We take the integrity of Ookla's data platform very seriously. As a crowdsourced data provider, we have a responsibility to ensure that consumers are truly represented in the data that we collect. We are fortunate to have a great team of data scientists who have invested heavily in our data methodology to ensure that every result we collect from the crowd can be presented in a way that is truly representative of consumers' connectivity experience.
How do Ookla's end-to-end enterprise solutions influence operators, businesses, government agencies and other tech industry players? Any particular case studies you can highlight from the MENA region?
Ookla has a wealth of data on the performance and quality of networks around the world. And particularly, that is of great value to this region. We have several examples that we can share where Ookla has provided actionable insights for regulators and operators to improve their networks. Just one that I would like to highlight is the pandemic era in the last couple of years. The regulatory authority in Jordan, TRC, has used Ookla’s data to monitor the performance, quality and consistency of the consumer networks, to make sure that the citizens of Jordan have been able to have quality connectivity while everything shifted online. They worked with their operators and [Ookla], and have done a great job of ensuring quality and consistent connectivity through these difficult few years.
How do you plan to innovate and keep up with the demands of delivering invaluable network insights worldwide?
Ookla is a global company, and we work with customers in many countries around the world where every market is a little bit different. We are fortunate that we work in a space where there are a lot of standards with connectivity. Hence, we focus on those standards and consistent measurement across all markets, and we are very scalable in that regard. Of course, we do work very closely with customers and partners in every market in the world that we do business in to make sure that we are keeping up with new trends, new technology that is being implemented, or current technology being used in a new way. It is very important to us that we stay close to that and can represent that in Ookla’s data.
Ookla plays an important role in enabling modern connectivity. What is your growth outlook for the ICT industry in the coming years?
The world has changed a lot in the last few years, and the macroeconomic outlook is a little bit cloudy. I cannot claim to know what's coming in the next few years. The one thing I will say is that our industry is so valuable to consumers around the world. It is something that is looked at as a utility just like electricity or water to the home - you need quality connectivity. So, while I think we may not be in for as much explosive growth as we have seen in the last few years, I think there will be consistent growth and a lot of expectations from consumers.
