design their applications to make full use of our smartphones’
buttons and connectors. When we hear what our partners are
trying to do, we try to enable their ideas through our platform
and help and encourage them in any way we can from a
technical perspective, so that they can get a time-to-market
advantage with our platform.
Public safety agencies are used to being able to
use two-way radios for five years or more and
want the same from their smartphones, but the
fast-moving consumer world means that many of
the components for smartphones have relatively
short availability – how do you try to minimise
this issue?
When we choose a chipset from our partners like Qualcomm,
we try to choose one that has the longest life possible so we
can extend the life of our product as much as possible. As
I mentioned earlier, we provide a three-year unconditional
warranty on our devices, and as we expect our customers
to be using them for at least that long, we try to choose
technologies and components that will last for the life
expectancy of the device platform.
You’ve worked in a number of different companies
in the critical communications industry – how
would you say Sonim’s company culture differs
from theirs?
Sonim still has the culture of a start-up; that’s exciting because
you can take a product idea and develop it internally quite
quickly – at a larger company that would take a lot of time
and effort and sometimes those products and ideas never come
to fruition. A lot of us here have a lot of energy and wear a lot
of hats. At Sonim, we look for fresh ideas, see if we can make
them a reality and, if we think they will generate a good return
on investment, we can move quickly.
Sonim recently had an initial public offering
(IPO). What prompted it – are you looking to raise
money to invest in any particular area?
The IPO was a long time in coming. If we were to acquire
other businesses or expand our portfolio, we now have more
capability and a much better environment with which to do
Bob Escalle CV
Robert (Bob) Escalle serves as Sonim’s vice-president
responsible for its public safety and defence market segments.
Escalle has overseen its expansion and continued leadership
in these focused verticals. Before joining Sonim, he served
as director of product management at Motorola Solutions,
where he focused on managing the broadband device product
portfolio. Before joining Motorola Solutions, Escalle held various
senior-level positions in both product and business management
focusing on wired, wireless and semiconductor market
segments within the telecommunications industry for AT&T,
Cassidian Communications, QuantM Voice, Lucent Technologies,
Texas Instruments and Globespan Semiconductor.
so than if we were still a private entity. We’re quite excited
about it.
What has Sonim been doing recently?
We developed our Rapid Deployment Kit (RDK) a little over
a year ago. It incorporates four of our XP8 handsets and is
supplied in an ultra-rugged case. It provides a 300-500ft Wi-
Fi bubble, and with power-over-Ethernet connections, you
can connect things like IP-PBX phones, IP cameras, so it’s
designed to set up a command and control centre in remote
areas where you may have limited cellular coverage. Where
that coverage is absent, you can use satellite to backhaul the
IP traffic to the RDK. The Wi-Fi bubble can be extended
with external antennas. You can also mesh multiple kits
together, so if you have three of them, but only one is within
cellular coverage, the other two can backhaul through it and
you can do the same with satellite connectivity.
We’re working on an in-vehicle set-up that displays your
smartphone’s user interface and the apps you’re using on it
on a large touchscreen and keyboard that’s mounted inside
the vehicle. That way, with all the intelligence residing in the
smartphone, there’s no need for two smart devices and two
mobile subscriptions. Some of our competitors already have a
similar system, but we’re doing it in a different way with both
wired and wireless means of connecting the smartphone to
the large touchscreen and keyboard.
There’s also the SLED (Sonim LMR Enhanced
Detachable), an accessory for the XP8, that allows direct
off-network communication via P25/DMR/TETRA, but not
simultaneously – it’s still at the prototype phase. That said,
we already have a similar direct mode accessory that operates
in the licence-exempt 900MHz ISM band that is limited to
1 watt of RF power – it has a limited range, but it’s still very
useful for those with smartphones looking to communicate
with each other while outside cellular network coverage.
Finally, we’re participating in ETSI’s MCX (missioncritical
PTT, data and video) Plugtests to make sure that our
devices are interoperable with the rest of the MCX ecosystem.
I’ve been involved in standards bodies for years both as an
observer and a participant and I’ve been pleasantly surprised
by how well everyone at these events works together to resolve
technical issues or problems with the standards.
September 2019 @CritCommsToday 17