What should you may promote your remaining cellular knowledge earlier than the tip of the month and even each day? Christophe Bureau, a Board Member of DotDot, in a dialog with EFY’s Mukul Yudhveer Singh, sheds mild on what the Dot machine affords past aiding customers in promoting their unused web knowledge.
Q. What precisely does DotDot do?
A. On the finish of the day or month, many gigabytes stay in our cellular subscriptions. DotDot permits customers to commerce these gigabytes utterly anonymously.
Q. How is it performed?
A. DotDot machine, priced at roughly ₹1000 in India, is paired with a telephone to create a 100-metre Wi-Fi zone. Customers inside this vary should purchase knowledge from the DotDot community.
Q. Earlier than we get into the small print, what impressed the identify DotDot?
A. My concept was to attach the dots between individuals by serving to them share gigabytes of web knowledge, all whereas guaranteeing the anonymity of each the vendor and the client.
| In keeping with Counterpoint Analysis, India at present has over 600 million smartphone customers. As per Nokia’s annual Cell Broadband Index (MBiT) report, common knowledge consumption per person in India reached 19.5GB per person a month in 2022 |
Q. Why would somebody need to use such a tool after they can use their telephone as a Wi-Fi router?
A. DotDot, in contrast to a telephone, doesn’t require sharing passwords, guaranteeing optimum cybersecurity for customers. Moreover, whereas a telephone’s Wi-Fi zone is restricted to 25 metres, DotDot extends this vary to 100 metres.
Q. Are you able to clarify the entire course of from a person’s and a purchaser’s perspective?
A. As a purchaser, I hook up with a close-by DotDot, the place the app replaces the necessity for a password. From the vendor’s perspective, buying a ‘dot’ allows them to pair it with their telephone, making a Wi-Fi zone to which close by customers can join.
Q. Why would my cellular community permit this?
A. Cell community suppliers usually face a churn price of 12% to twenty%, indicating the share of consumers who go away their service. DotDot affords an answer by permitting customers to promote their unused knowledge, serving to them keep energetic on their community. Moreover, DotDot allows cellular operators to succeed in populations missing web entry, probably growing their buyer base by introducing them to connectivity advantages.
Q. By which elements of the world is that this deployed?
A. It is a market. We’re beginning by constructing communities. We go to college campuses, NGOs, and different establishments to type partnerships. Furthermore, we’re in talks with some cell phone operators in France. We now have additionally began exploring the Indian market.
Q. Other than the machine value, the place does your income come from?
A. Customers solely must pay for the {hardware} upfront, with no subscription charges. DotDot earns income by taking a fee on transactions. Initially, a good portion of customers select to share their gigabytes without cost, with the bulk finally opting to commerce them.
Q. Are there every other use circumstances for this machine?
A. DotDot units can create decentralised networks which are personal or public, permitting groups to remain linked with out web entry. These networks have functions in defence, mining, distant areas, and low-latency environments. DotDot additionally has potential makes use of in manufacturing, changing pricey communication units between tools. Moreover, DotDot is exploring functions with particular forces for his or her distinctive communication wants.
Q. What are some potential use circumstances in India?
A. Within the Indian market, defence, manufacturing, and the automotive business are our largest markets! Whereas use circumstances for the defence business are delicate, in manufacturing, the mesh networks can simply exchange in any other case costly tools. Within the automotive business, one machine will be put in per car after which used for over-the-air updates.
Q. The place is the machine manufactured? Additionally, please spotlight the elements getting used.
A. The manufacturing is in France, with some elements sourced from Taiwan. We’re working to diversify our sourcing with embedded hardware-agnostic software program. All {hardware} elements are manufactured in France. For software program, we’re partnering with an Indian firm known as Infinity Answer primarily based in Coimbatore. We don’t rule out the opportunity of a producing line in India.
