This is a transcript from our weekly YouTube live AMA:

Anita Mlakar: 00:05

Hello, everybody, and welcome to 3air’s AMA, it is Wednesday, 5 o’clock PM, and we are back we are here again, and really looking forward to having you also with us in this live AMA, as always. So, thank you for being with us.

00:22

I would like to invite you, of course to be also part of our communities, we have three communities, it is actually one big community, but we would really like to have you on Discord on Telegram and on Twitter. And you can also follow us on our social networks to get all the information about what we are doing. If you’re not familiar with the project of 3air yet, then you’re welcome also to read the white paper, everything is written in it. And of course, a part of being in contact with you is also these AMAs every Wednesday, and then every Monday we are on Twitter space, and thank you for being with us.

01:04

Today, of course also Sandi Bitenc will be joining us. He is the CEO of three air, and we have a special guest or guests coming up. So, stay tuned. But first Anita Mlakar is my name. I am the host of these AMAs. And I would just like to make a short introduction of the project of what 3air is doing if you’re not familiar with it yet.

01:27

So 3air is on a mission to enable equal opportunities for the people of Africa, many talents there are left undiscovered only because there is no one to educate and bring the best out of them because there is no connection. Connectivity is really poor in Africa and 3air’s vision is to make broadband connectivity available to Africa countries. Our goal is to drive through financial inclusion and equal opportunities for billions of people who still don’t have access to high-speed internet. And 3air empowers them to make life changing progress in work, banking, education, and in health. So 3air is making the hopes of high fast speed, affordable, reliable internet connectivity, a reality through its blockchain technology-based solution and elevates the principles of decentralization for use in the solution for a real world and critical problem. And we are of course talking about that not only in our AMAs, but also in our channels in our communities.

02:35

Let me welcome now as always, Sandi Bitenc, the CEO of 3air.

02:41

Hello, Sandi and welcome!

Sandi Bitenc: 02:43

Hello, Anita. Hello, everyone. Hello, 3air fam. How are you?

Anita Mlakar: 02:49

I’m doing fine. I hope everybody else will answer how they’re doing. We have sunshine today. How are you Sandi?

Sandi Bitenc: 02:57

We have sunshine always.

Anita Mlakar: 03:00

You have sunshine at home Sandi?

Sandi Bitenc: 03:04

Absolutely!

Anita Mlakar: 03:06

Yeah. And I’m so glad that we have spoken also to Petra. When was that? It was a week ago, I think and got to know her better.

Sandi Bitenc: 03:18

Yes. And you also spoke to her today in the morning, then she was like a really a sunshine, all in yellow, you remember?

Anita Mlakar: 03:28

Yeah, I do speak to her. But you know, our people in communities don’t have a chance often to meet her and to speak to her.

Sandi Bitenc: 03:36

Yeah, of course they had the chance to meet her.

Anita Mlakar: 03:39

They’re not so lucky as you, you know?

Sandi Bitenc: 03:42

Yeah. Sometimes I just you know, it’s good that you remind me.

Anita Mlakar: 03:47

I know, I will do that regularly. I see that there are some people already with us. Thank you very much for writing the comments for saying hi. Sandi, what is going on lately? Of course, connected to 3air.

Sandi Bitenc: 04:06

Connected to 3air, so we just break the news.

Anita Mlakar: 04:10

I don’t know. What is your plan?

Sandi Bitenc: 04:13

What happened is actually that we had to postpone a bit the launch. So, the problem was that the audit didn’t come back in time. And then we are in talks with quite a lot of launch pads, and they also require a token audit. So, this is what set us back a bit. So, I can say that I received the audit today and it’s fine. I’m waiting for the company actually to upload it to the repository. And then we’ll share it directly from there link. So, it’s not like something that we distribute, but it’s there, it’s fine. So, we are good to go. No real issues found there.

05:04

We also got one confirmation already from a launch pad, we’ll be revealing this once everything is really finalized and we are having a call tomorrow evening with them, but it is kind of confirmed so and we are finalizing the dates and the dates is it seems will be either end of April or just really the first weekend in May. So, no long waiting anymore or like real postponement because also me personally, I really want to see this go out in the public but as I already explained, it is in all our best interests, the token launches a success, right? So, I think that now waiting a few more days or a couple of weeks is good without just launching it right now. We also have Rok here and actually rock can tell you that technically we’re ready to launch. Let’s bring Rok in.

Anita Mlakar: 06:21

Hello. Hey!

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 06:21

Hello everyone!

Sandi Bitenc: 06:25

Rok, just tell me if we would say we want to launch the token right now, how long would you need to get the token actually out and listed?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 06:39

Very long time, at least 5 minutes or 10. No, everything is ready for the launch. We have the vesting, we have the token contracts, we have everything prepared. So, it’s only a matter of decision and picking the right time and the exact spots, make the launch as smooth as possible and perfect for everyone.

Sandi Bitenc: 07:01

Yeah, so what you are missing a bit, it’s not the technical things, it’s a bit more getting it out on the launch pads so that we can capture a bit more community. And we do want to see some good buyer action. So, and that’s kind of important. If we mess up the launch in regards to really the adoption, it can set us back for months, I’ve seen really good projects launch their token, not taking care about the launch and what’s happening there. There’s many aspects to a really successful project. And it’s not only having a good product, we have a good product, we have a good team behind it, but we’d still need to get- we’ve been doing a lot in marketing. And I think you also spoke about marketing with Ruba, last week, and so on. So, we are upping the game a lot. But we do want to have at least one launch pad. But if possible, we’ll probably start with two or three. And we’re also talking right now with a with a really good exchange, actually higher level than I thought that we would be listing, and it might come a centralized exchange might come really even at launch already. So, let’s see, things are definitely going in the right direction I can confirm that. And I’m sure that we’ll have a really successful launch. We just need this a few more days or a couple of weeks. And then we’re good to go.

Anita Mlakar: 08:43

This is a very important announcement because everybody was talking about this or asking it in community and on telegram. So yeah, this is huge. Thank you for sharing.

Sandi Bitenc: 08:56

Yeah, we’ll make a proper announcement once everything is more or less, you know, defined. so, we don’t have the exact date we need to see exactly. And I actually want the launch pad to announce it. So that once a launch pad really announces it, then you can be sure it’s going to happen.

Anita Mlakar: 09:24

There’s a question, of course, Lawrence is asking which Launch pad have you chosen?

Sandi Bitenc: 09:31

So, I told you, it is a good lunch, but I can tell you this I’m not going to give you the name yet because we do want to get more in. So, we still keep that a secret. It is a good one. It’s not the top tier one like really the best one that you’re aiming for. So, once we get the top one in, then we will reveal everything. Also, once everything is set, we will tell you exactly which one it is and which date it is and everything that you need to know.

Anita Mlakar: 10:08

Okay, so we still have some information to give away in the days to come but the important news was also given today. Thank you very much, Sandi. Rok, tell me by the way, how are you doing? Are you okay?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 10:22

Yeah, everything is perfect. At least the weather is getting better here. So,, as far as this goes, this makes the day much better.

Anita Mlakar: 10:32

Just tell me one of the things that last time we were talking, you said, you’re really looking forward to going to Dubai. And you were there, right?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 10:42

Yeah, I was there for a week.

Anita Mlakar: 10:45

How was it?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 10:47

It wasn’t really a business trip, it was more like a tourist trip, little different. So, I can see a bit of Dubai, it was perfect. I was just there to catch the expo, kind of even the ending of the expo, made a few trips around the town, looked at the main things that were there. Had some meetings, came to Sandi, once or twice, so.

Sandi Bitenc: 11:12

So, for everyone and Rok, you you’re not listening now for what I’m saying? Everyone, if you take a vacation, don’t go to the same town as your CEO is living. So, you should not do that because you’ll be working.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 11:33

You won’t have time for anything else.

Anita Mlakar: 11:35

I will remember that.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 11:38

Anita go anywhere. Just don’t go to Dubai.

Anita Mlakar: 11:44

And I was looking forward to that. Oh my god. I see that Petra is smiling in the comments. Petra, you know what? I will come to Petra not to Sandi.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 11:58

You can maybe wait that Sandi goes to some conference in Africa and then you go to Dubai.

Anita Mlakar: 12:05

Petra, what do you say about that? Oh, my God. Somebody’s asking. I think it’s Gigi. Sandi’s living in Dubai?

Sandi Bitenc: 12:14

Yeah, for a year and a half already.

Anita Mlakar: 12:18

Yeah. And we had a lot of, you know, pictures from Dubai from Sandi. What is happening there, so yes, Sandi is in Dubai but sometimes he is coming to Slovenia just to visit friends and family.

Sandi Bitenc: 12:34

Exactly!

Anita Mlakar: 12:36

Petra is saying I will take care of you. Thank you, Petra. I appreciate that. And I will come.

Sandi Bitenc: 12:43

I have too much power over you. That centralization.

Anita Mlakar: 12:48

Nobody said anything about your T-shirt today.

Sandi Bitenc: 12:54

No, it’s nothing like- but I do have a new Star Wars T-shirt. I just don’t know where it is.

Anita Mlakar: 13:05

Oh my god. That’s a problem. He has a new shirt and does not know where it is.

Sandi Bitenc: 13:10

No, I think somebody washed it.

Anita Mlakar: 13:17

That’s normal. You know when you buy something new. A question for Rok. Did you at least get some daily expensive.

Sandi Bitenc: 13:28

I made him a coffee.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 13:32

I even got two coffee. So, I was there two times at Sandi. I got coffee both time, so everything covered no problem.

Anita Mlakar: 13:40

Really homemade coffee, right?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 13:43

Yeah. It was perfect.

Anita Mlakar: 13:47

but I would have to agree with Richard who says we need 3air T-shirts.

Sandi Bitenc: 13:54

Yes. There are currently being some 3air T-shirts produced in Africa with one of our- did I break something that I shouldn’t have? Well, we are getting an influencer from Africa. A big one. The contract is signed already but we didn’t make the announcement yet because we want to do the T-shirts first. And then I think next week the announcement will come.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 14:31

I think you should make a T-shirt with Darth Vader and have a 3air logo on the side or something.

Sandi Bitenc: 14:36

Yeah, if you didn’t notice we are we are changing a bit our logo and graphics and everything. We went with a website with a bit more darker colours and those stuff so making it a bit more crypto friendly. We started out more as a traditional Telecom graphics and visuals and now we’re changing it a bit more to crypto. And this is also why we didn’t go and print the previous T-shirts. So, we’ll print the new ones with the new colours and everything.

Anita Mlakar: 15:24

Okay, here’s also a suggestion 3air T-shirt combined with a 3air NFT.

Sandi Bitenc: 15:30

Yeah. And about the NFTs we actually talked about, maybe Rok can also tell us a bit on how the progress is with NFT because he’s been doing some work already before we talked about it on some NFTs and the NFT marketplace.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 15:53

Yeah, so like we are getting the data, we’re getting the graphics and everything for NFTs. We’re getting our market ready on our app.

Sandi Bitenc: 16:10

So, what we are actually trying to do is to provide a NFT marketplace for African artists.

Anita Mlakar: 16:25

Great. That’s good news. We have a special guest today and I’m really looking forward to inviting him to our conversation because we made an announcement that today’s ama will be a live demo of the Telecom Management System. And the one who will introduce us to that will be Matija Turk and I would really like to invite Him in.

Anita Mlakar: 16:59

Hello Matija.

Matija Turk: 17:00

Hello, Anita. Thanks for calling me. Hello, everybody.

Sandi Bitenc: 17:05

Hi!

Anita Mlakar: 17:06

Welcome! We are really happy to have you here. Let me just say that Matija is Group Chief Operating Officer at K3, but we would like to hear more about you and your work directly from you. What are you doing Matija?

Matija Turk: 17:24

Okay, so once more hello to everybody watching. I’ll try to do the short introduction, the one where I have to present myself. Basically, I’m the Group chief operating officer for K3 telecom, I’ve been an operating officer for a few telecoms before that. I’m also in development, we have a Telecom Management System that I will present shortly afterwards. And before that, system operations, network operations, organizing and managing in the bank sector, in telecom sector, in web development studios, stuff like this. It has been a wild ride. And it looks like it’s continuing here with 3air also.

Anita Mlakar: 18:28

Yeah, well, very interesting occupation. Matija, I have to say, it takes the whole man, right?

Matija Turk: 18:35

Yeah. I like jumping around. That’s the most important part is I am always looking for the next challenge.

Anita Mlakar: 18:43

Okay. You are from Croatia, right?

Matija Turk: 18:47

Yeah, I’m from Croatia, currently living in the northern part. So almost Slovenia. Now in there, I’m meeting Rok. So, every project together is a good project. Every single is success. So yeah, that’s it and of course during the summer, it’s always beach.

Anita Mlakar: 19:13

Okay. It’s Croatia.

Sandi Bitenc: 19:20

Here beaches more like in the winter. In summer it’s too hot.

Matija Turk: 19:26

In Dubai for sure.

Anita Mlakar: 19:28

Sandi, that’s your problem.

Sandi Bitenc: 19:32

It’s a tough one to live with.

Anita Mlakar: 19:34

But we always have the sea you know, to get colder, to refresh ourselves and we like also Croatia sea, the Slovenia’s are just crazy. I was on a special occasion yesterday where we were talking about Croatia, and I think Slovenians are the second biggest group of people who are coming to Croatia seaside.

Matija Turk: 19:58

Yeah, biggest tourism group after Croatia are Slovenians.

Anita Mlakar: 20:04

Yeah, really, we are just crazy about it. I wanted to say that you and the Rok look a little alike, you know when I’m seeing you so you’re doing project together and you look like you have beards. Yeah, look at that.

Matija Turk: 20:21

You’re not allowed to shave before the projects are done.

Anita Mlakar: 20:28

Do you see this similarity Sandi?

Sandi Bitenc: 20:32

You think so. Just maybe if Matija removes the glasses, let’s see.

Matija Turk: 20:38

I think it’s same.

Sandi Bitenc: 20:41

I also have a beard. Just you know, I have a better haircut.

Anita Mlakar: 20:47

You have a different haircut.

Matija Turk: 20:52

The whole meaning of the word Haircut.

Sandi Bitenc: 20:57

I don’t like him.

Anita Mlakar: 21:03

Oh, my God, and now Matija, you will be talking about Telecom Management System. Could you tell us, let’s say for someone like me, who doesn’t know a lot about it in a couple of sentences. What is Telecom Management System actually?

Matija Turk: 21:17

Well, if we are talking about telecoms as a business entities, they’re more or less the same as any other business entity. And that is that they need a Business Support System, which is named BSS. So, every company needs a Business Support System, which is basically a way of how to handle all the processes with the help of Information Technology. So, the TMS system that we are talking about right here is a BSS system, that helps telecoms, to be better at what they do. The goal is to manage all the business processes of a telecom in one system so that when you are building a telecom and managing it, you don’t need 10 or 15 different softwares and then you don’t need to integrate them together. So, because every telecom needs to track their customers, they need to create invoices, they need to track their inventory, they need to be able to organize their field teams that are going to connect the customers, field teams that are going to provide support to those customers. You want to organize your Salesforce for selling and getting new customers, all of this needs to be managed. And what companies usually do is they buy different systems for all that. And then you need to connect like your CRM to your financial system. And then you need to connect it to your provisioning system, because how are you going to get those customers activated. And then if you get tangled up in all of that, you will lose a lot of time, a lot of resources and manpower. And in the end always goes back to money trying to connect the customer.

23:13

With TMS, the goal is to do it seamlessly easy in only one system. So, and because of that the system knows everything there is to know about customers invoices, inventory, activation of services, supporting that customer, it’s all quick. It’s just like, I want to see this customer, I can see this customer, I want to see his support tickets, I can see his history, I can see if he’s paying if he is not paying if he is online or not. I can even use it as a marketing platform, send messages to the customers and stuff like this. So, I didn’t put out the harder words, but I’m hoping that you got a picture of what I’m talking about.

Sandi Bitenc: 23:56

Yeah, I think that it’s really important, because what this leads is actually that we can automate things, right?

Matija Turk: 24:06

Yes.

Sandi Bitenc: 24:08

For us, what we actually want to achieve is actually you know, a lot of automation.

Matija Turk: 24:15

Yep. And then, of course, if you have a really good BSS, and that has all of this insight, it’s easy to integrate it with all the other systems that it needs to be so and because the BSS here already has an integrated crypto wallet and system information and the financial information it can all be together connected in one story.

Anita Mlakar: 24:43

Okay, thank you Matija, there are already some questions coming in but what you have for us this presentation right now. So, we would really like to hear that and to see that and of invite, of course, everybody to ask questions and then you will be, of course, answering them after this presentation, so Matija, go ahead, the world is yours.

Sandi Bitenc: 25:09

I would really like to ask you to do the short version. What’s your long version? How long does the long version actually take?

Matija Turk: 25:18

It’s a good thing you asked about the short version. The long version is almost two hours. It’s one hour and 45 minutes.

Sandi Bitenc: 25:26

Okay, yeah, it can go up to four hours, probably also.

Matija Turk: 25:30

If needed, I can go on and on and on and on. And you’ll just say, my Matija, please stop.

Sandi Bitenc: 25:37

Yeah, let’s see the short version, please.

Matija Turk: 25:39

Okay, perfect. Let me just share my screen and please confirm that my screen is seen.

Sandi Bitenc: 25:48

Yes, it is.

Matija Turk: 25:49

Okay, cool. So, this is the short version of the presentation. The point about that is that telecom is a big operation. And if you want to manage everything, there is a lot of subjects to go around. And of course, inside those subjects, it can get a little bit complicated. So, I will try to keep it short and simple. So, the basic login for the System. System is an online web system, which means every employee of the company has access to it. And then depending on your role in the company, you have various degrees of access to system functions. Keep in mind that what I’m showing you right now is, I’m an administrator, so I can see all the functions. Basically, this is reserved only for special peoples, and then the employees can only see one or two or three functions depending on their position in the company.

26:47

Another important fact is that this is a demo system set up for presentation. So, all the data insides are demo data, and because it needs to talk with a lot of outside systems to get information. And then for example, talking with base stations to get information about customer connectivity and stuff like this, some of the data might not be shown or might be empty.

27:14

Okay, so logging in into the system.

27:22

Okay, so this is the basic overview, the system consists of the left side panel that will show you all the menus and sub menus that you’re entitled to see. And on the right side, you will have the option to work with the system. The basic entities in the system are customer and accounts. And for anybody that has been in telecom, those are the basic building blocks. Customer is a customer meaning a private person, or a company that is paying for the services. And then the accounts are their internet connectivity. So, for example, me as a private person, I might have two accounts. One is my house, the second one is my barn yard, or if I’m a business entity, I’m a customer and I might have 10 accounts because I have 10 locations that need connection. So, the system gives you an overview of all the customers inside. And if I want to search I can quickly find and that is also one of the important parts of the system is the ability to quickly access all the information and all the operations that you need to do.

28:49

So, if I want to search for example, I have an example customer here for the presentation named Estel. I can quickly find my customer, I can add a service to that customer for one two, and that actually means create a process that will start from signing a contract, assigning a team for install, assigning equipment and so on and so forth. Or I can enter into this customer and then see all the information that is important about this customer. So, where’s the customer located? If they have multiple accounts, support tickets, open invoices contact information, I can see the statement of accounts. I can see that the customer has one legal contract signed. So, if they are taking a postpaid account, for example, with some sort of a Triple Play service, they will need to sign the legal agreement, which is immediately available for review or print and then if I want to go and access that account, I can also go into the System Accounts page where I can find the account for the same customer.

30:13

So, and this is basically the main screen that most of the people will use. This allows us to look at the customers. And it can be a little bit overwhelming about the amount of information shown here but what it allows you is to quickly see what’s going on with a specific account. So, for example, if I want to search for our Estel here, I can quickly find that Estel has one account, there are some other Estel in the system, but it’s not the Estel we are looking for. She is unable to count because she’s not red, her model is responsive and online. Her priority is rather low. She has one support ticket. She was connected a few years ago, her monthly bill is $93. She is a postpaid type of the account, and then the service she’s using his mega postpaid, obviously. So, if I go into work, if I want to work with the support tickets, I can immediately go into ticketing, and then just see what is going on, who is handling the ticket, I can write in comments and say, for example, customer call has sent field support team, write comments, work together with my colleagues and try to solve the customer problem or just say please send somebody there and let them fix the stuff. And what this actually does is create an entry into another part of the system, which is called the project manager.

32:00

The project manager is basically a station that allows you to organize your field units, that allows you to organize all of your install teams, all of your support teams, and say, Okay, right now you’re doing this, you’re doing that there are requests for installations, there are request for takedowns, request for support, you need to be able to organize it and you need to be able to organize it efficiently. So, and this is actually the part where I’m shortening the presentation and just showing you the main screen and talking about the topics. Instead of saying, hey, there’s a way to plan for this, there’s a way of going inside the system, selecting the customers, there is a way of creating work orders and so on and so forth. And with this, you have the ability to analyses your field teams, you have the ability to do advanced statistics later on with the business intelligence module. Tracking, for example, which team has a low average of response time, which team can handle more support cases or less support cases. How many teams are needed, because when you start working with higher numbers, and that is usually with telecoms above 50,000 customers, you get to the point where statistics becomes really important, it allows you to say for example, our meantime, of install once we get to the location is one hour and a half. And then if you come to Africa, you will figure out that it’s not one hour and a half, it’s three hours, and it changes the whole operation. It changes how many vehicles you need; it changes how many fuel you’re spending. It changes how many people you need. It changes everything. And that’s why it’s important to have a tool like this in order to plan the operation. And this is actually the part that is specific for my job and that I like in my job is that it’s constantly changing.

34:20

Especially in Africa, it’s completely different from any experience I’ve ever had before that and that is that it’s a little bit different than just going like in Europe to an apartment and then connecting fiber and that’s it you need to go you need to plan you need to take into account the traffic, the environment, the weather and everything else. And then without the proper planning tool for this, you’re going to have a bad time. So, a little bit back to do interesting parts of the system as for example the technical overview of the network, the system in the background always tracks what’s going on with all the customer devices. So that you can know practically if part of the network is having problems, if a specific customer is having problem, and then the system will automatically raise support tickets, even if the customer didn’t call and said, I have a problem. And that is because background part of the system is constantly tracking all the information for all the base station and all the customer devices. And then just looking okay, this number is bad, this number is bad, I will open a support ticket for Jonathan, because Jonathan might have a bad service. And then again, transferring that to Project Manager it enables you and then also with the parts of the CRM, talking with customer, you can practically contact customers, you can contact them and say we have noticed that your service is below the expectations that we expect for our customers to have, we are working on it, our call center will contact you once we resolve the problem. And for customers, this is something that even Europe don’t have in telecom.

36:23

Other than that, what is important for people managing the technical part in telecom is also in sales is an overview of what’s going on where our customers are. And like let’s call it a general overview of where our base stations are, based on that where our customers are, if they are online, if they are offline, who is this, what’s going on. And let’s see, for example, opening this customer is completely the same here from the map as it is for opening him from the main overview of all the accounts. And this is actually another thing that I wanted to show you. And that is this little screen, which is called a cPanel. I’ll just use another way of getting to it. I’m trying to show you how versatile the system is in accessing the important information. I’m hoping I’m not going too fast and confusing everybody. So, for example, if I want to open our Estel, I will open her cPanel here and on the cPanel this is called the cPanel because it means customer panel. And it shows all the important information regarding the customer account. So, on the main screen, it’ll show you all the technical information regarding his link quality. Of course, it’s empty now because there is no actual link behind this customer. As this is a demo system, it can show you the graph and the power levels of the customer equipment. It can show you the signal levels it can show you also if you go on the internet here. It can show you the graph of his internet usage and history.

38:36

Other than that, here are other financial and communication parts of the cPanel. So, for example, if I want to show you the statement of accounts for this customer, it can be seen here so every single invoice and sales receipt is inside. Of course, you can immediately open it and if you are for example a point-of-sale person, you can print it out for the customer if he needs it. Then you can put a specific discount in the system also there’s a big billing part, an invoicing part. The one that in the background constantly monitors what needs to be built, usage of internet or subscription or if he’s a prepaid customer it can track the immediate expenditure of units and stuff like this. The system tracks inventory and full history for every device and who did what.

39:57

Also, there is a marketing module in this system. And depending on the configuration, you can send the messages to the customer via SMS email. You can even send messages to the customer to TV sets, if you have a triple service. And then all of that can be done on a single user basis. Or you can do it via a marketing campaign and then just say, Okay, let’s do a campaign, let’s contact all of our customers and send them an SMS saying thank you for your service, let’s pay the bills on time or whatever you want. And then when we are at the marketing campaign, another important feature of the system is that all the accounts also have something called tags here, those tags are filled both by the system and by people using the system. So, in the background system automatically adds a tag to customer accounts, meaning if the customer is paying regularly, the background AI system will put in the tag regular payer, if the customer has a lot of tickets, it will put a tag higher support maintenance requirements from this customer. And then in the CRM part to the system when you are entering those customers and later on with key account managers are managing it, they put in tags they want to put in, or basically what is set up as a company procedure to do it.

41:56

Here, for example, every customer account is entered as small business big business. And then based on I don’t know, and on sales channel. Whatever tags you can kind of come up with, you can put it in. And then if you for example, if you want to list all the small businesses, for example, you just type in small business, and it lists all of the small businesses in your system. So, it’s a really powerful tool to analyses your customer base. But you can also use it to, for example, create a marketing campaign. And then just send an SMS to every government office. And then just say, hey, thank you for your service, please pay the bills on time or thank you for your service, you just added the five-megabit speed for this month for you. So really powerful tool for managing your customers, reviewing your customers and doing analysis on for example, performance of the sales channels.

43:23

Other than that, the system has full support for ticketing and tasks. So, what it enables is, enables you to track all the internal tasks inside of the company and all the ticketing for support for your customers. So, it enables you to have as you can see here, I created one ticket for this Estel here, which is the first level support ticket, which means I received it, I tried to fix it. And if I cannot fix it, I will put it to second level support. And then only the employees that are marked a second level support will see that ticket. So, it’s easy for the ticket to float around the company until it is resolved. And then in the Business Intelligence Module, you can see how the statistics of that workout. So, if you have a bunch of tickets stuck at first level support, maybe you need to way of offload that or built a first and a half like level of support. And these are actually the daily tasks of operations manager that is to monitor the company and see how everything is flowing. This is what the system allows you to do.

44:41

Also, another part of all of this is business intelligence, it is different based on the KPIs that you want to track for every specific company. But again, and of course operation but again, some parts are always the same. This is, for example, commercial dashboard, showing you some data that will help you in your monthly planning and monitoring of the sales operation, showing you how much you’ve sold, what sales channels sold it, how much in dollars, you’d have disabled customers. The sum of all subscriptions, how much will expire in April of the prepaid customers. So how much of those are you willing and capable of get back into activation, it’ll show you the ARPU, which is the standard number for the telecoms. It’ll show you your open debt from your customers. It’ll show you your daily sales, it’ll show you your inflow of cash into the company, it will show your inventory that you’ve issued per month. And so on and so forth.

45:59

Inventory module tracks all the inventory. As I said before, it allows you to track every single modem in your company, every single device in your company, and how it flows between your warehouse, to your install teams, to your customers and then back. There is a Voice part of the system that shows you the integration with the soft switches allowing you for voice services. Do not go into the voice system because it’s a really big thing. I can show you how you can organize groups of countries in order to define the prices for the destinations. But all of this, of course, integrates to the whole other subsystem, which is soft switches voice and call router.

47:12

So, this is really me trying to do a short presentation of a really big system. I hope I didn’t bother you too much. And I think it should be time now to go into the questions part. Sandi, do you think that it’s a smart play now? Or?

Sandi Bitenc: 47:31

Yeah, it’s absolutely. That was pretty amazing. And they’re quite some really nice questions there. Some people are, I think looked like they’re really technical already. So, I think you’ll like the questions.

Anita Mlakar: 47:53

Yes, Matija. It was great presentation. I have to say I’m not such a technical type. But you know, it was interesting for me too. And now that I see all these questions, it’s amazing. Cool, really, people understand that. And of course, what more do they want to learn? So, Sandi should we go? From the beginning with the question, maybe you have answered already, to some of them, you know, during the whole presentation, but still, let’s start with this first one. The TMS software had the helpdesk system integrated. Is this all a cloud-based service? Was a question from Freeconect.

Matija Turk: 48:36

Okay, it is not a cloud-based system, because I don’t know any telecoms that would be willing to have their data somewhere outside of their data center. And because telecoms deal with internet they usually have their own data centers. So, it is a web-based solution towards the client interface, but it is always hosted on telecom premises in the data center and all the other core services. In regards to Helpdesk, yeah, it does have integrated helpdesk module allowing fine grained configuration of both levels of support you want to provide, and the types of problems work and flows can be configured separately. You it’s a big subject. At some other AMA, we can just go into ticketing if needed. And it’s also integrated with internal tasks for the company, which is really important because at some point when you go to higher level problems, you will have your sis admins at the same time solving customer problems and solving internal server problems. So, it needs to be integrated and it is one of the biggest selling points of the integrated system.

Anita Mlakar: 50:02

Okay, thank you, Matija. There is another, does the system communicate with the technicians in the field? In case of breakdowns that needs to be moved.

Matija Turk: 50:12

Yeah, I got to say I really loved the questions, they are really spot on, I usually don’t get a spot-on questions. Yeah, it does. System is web based, of course it’s not accessible from the public Internet. But technicians have their devices connect with VPN and open the system just like I’ll show you right now. So, it doesn’t matter where they are, they can immediately see their work orders, they can, if they have permission level set up correctly, they can access customer cPanel, like I showed you so they can immediately see and write in the support ticket. And, again, this is a really powerful tool, it allows you as a customer, when you call the call center, the call center will immediately see the message from the field officer working on your support case. So, if you have experience with telecoms in Europe, I can guarantee you they will not give you an answer what’s going on.

Anita Mlakar: 51:17

Okay, here’s a question from Joel. So, the customer doesn’t have to contact the company first or slow Internet services?

Sandi Bitenc: 51:29

That was regarded to when you were explaining that we can see if somebody has a bad connection, right?

Matija Turk: 51:34

Yeah! So that is part of the new generation of IT technologies, that allows you to preemptively see who will have problems, you know, and then the customer can still do it. And of course, they do but it’s really nice as a customer experience, when you get a call from and I would not even call it the first level support just a call from telecom saying, thank you for using our service, we are not noticing a degradation in the service, and we are working on your problem, even before you figure it out. This is something that makes your customers stay at you and there is no other telecom, at least in Africa that I know that will be able to provide this service.

Anita Mlakar: 52:20

Thank you. Does this software have Cisco as a partner? What kind of equipment are you going to use like routers, switches, for example?

Matija Turk: 52:34

I will not go too much into technical details but the product or the provisioning part of the product, which actually I didn’t show you, because the system automatically provisions all the customers and their equipment. So, when you sign the contract, when you enter the customer into TMS, the technician goes into the field, they know exactly where they need to go, who they need to connect and they just take the router in the antenna from the truck, they install the customer and the system automatically provisions the service for this customer on to that device, he only needs to scan with the barcode reader the device that he’s installing, and that’s it. And the provisioning system is actually independent of the underlying technology. So, the TMS system automatically provisions Cisco, Huawei fiber optics, cable, so DOCSIS, Wireless, WiMAX, whatever you want. We have customers on it. So don’t worry about system.

Anita Mlakar: 53:41

Okay, here’s another one, how does the system get all the networking information, any Syslog server in the middle of communications? Or does it communicate directly with the software?

Matija Turk: 53:54

So, in the background of the system, there is actually a lot of little sub systems. It’s actually not using a Syslog server; it’s using SNMP technology to talk with end user devices. And in the background, gathering all the information, the operational parameters of the client devices, and writing it into the database. So, whenever you open the cPanel, like I showed you, it reads from the database, the graph that it made long time ago, collecting all the real time data from the customer devices, and also all the customer devices if there’s technical people interested in this are communicating with TR-69 with our base server. So, we are always monitoring all the configuration of all devices and are able to upgrade the software and save customer information. So, what usually happens is for example, you have your home router from the telecom operator, and then you connect, you configure it with your home SSID for Wi Fi password, you configure all the port routing and all stuff you want to use. And then something is wrong with your connection. And they change the router, and you lose all of your configuration. You need to reconfigure all your home devices to the Wi-Fi and stuff like this. With our system, we don’t have this because we pull all the configuration data with TR-69 to our central service, so that when we change the modem, all of your configuration stays the same. And even if you factor in default, your modem and one reboot, it will get all the configuration that you had before. So, reboots are fast. I hope I answered your question.

Anita Mlakar: 55:38

Joel is asking, sounds like you guys are growing rapidly as you need to hire more people, what sort of positions will need to be filled, non-technical?

Matija Turk: 55:52

Okay, and this is more of a Sandi question. I’m guessing.

Sandi Bitenc: 55:56

More of a Sandi question. So, I think we would need to get somebody else who is hiring more people in Africa. So, from our side, we are still looking for people that can help with marketing. We still looking for some additional developers. So that’s the majority but to be honest about the Africa operations, I’m not really the guy to talk to I’m more the guy from the blockchain part.

Anita Mlakar: 56:30

Okay, let’s get back to questions for Matija, can you explain how TMS will be connected communicate with the blockchain and DID on the blockchain?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 56:43

This is more for me. Okay, so yeah, this is okay. So, the TMS has its own database, its own modules and everything. And as Matija said, there are some different services and modules that are connected to it. So, it’s like a complete mesh of different services. So, what we are actually doing to connect to the blockchain is that we have the blockchain supports, especially on the EVM, the thing that’s called like locks or meters and watchers, so what we can do is we can make a one service that connects directly to the chain and listen for the events. So, in the events, we get everything that we need from the blockchain, so we get transfers, we get activations, we get to know when somebody spent an NFT, when somebody sends some money when anything happens. So, the second that transaction is confirmed on the chain, we get the event into our system, and we pump it out into the TMS. So, we have like one, middleman like one middle service that’s taking the data from the chain and communicating with the TMS. So, it’s the same with the DIDs. Because of the DIDs, we still like DID is like one special service like everything else. So, we are like the idea authority. So, we have one more service for issuing the DIDs and distributing it to users. And we are connecting this to the middleman, and we are connecting the blockchain to the middleman. And to this everything is connected to the TMS. So, like to make one example. Let’s say as we said, we want to make NFTs packages for the internet. So as soon as you express I don’t know, activate internet via NFT, we immediately get the response from the chain, let’s say user A transferred or activate of his NFT, it immediately gets to the middleman immediately gets forwarded to the TMS. It goes over the process that Marty explained for the provisioning, and you get the internet connection.

Sandi Bitenc: 58:45

Yeah, and the user A is actually coming from the DID, right?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 58:50

Yeah, I mean, the DID is the thing that we need to match it like we can’t just say, I don’t know some random people on the blockchain send the NFT activate the more than because we don’t know it. So, we use the DIDs to actually know it’s like Person An Okay, we have the person A which activates the internet, we have his DID, so we know who he is. And then we can like combine this information to actually know what to activate and what’s connected and where the billing goes and all the other parts that you need to like to manage the customer.

Sandi Bitenc: 59:24

And actually, also so for instance, the contract that we saw there in the TMS can also be stored in the DID itself.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 59:36

Yeah. So DIDs, you have the verifiable claims and everything. So, we can store in the DIDs whatever is needed in our case, so we can store like where this user is his ID is in the management system, his personnel identifications, like whatever we need or whatever is needed in our case.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:00:01

And then the user actually has control of the data.

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 1:00:04

I mean, yeah, of course, this is the main point of them. So, it’s not like, centralized and we have all the data. I mean, DID, you actually have your identification on your phone, then the verifiable part on the chain. So, this is the main point of it.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:00:23

Thank you. That was a pretty cool explanation.

Anita Mlakar: 1:00:28

Thank you Rok. Here’s another question. Are you going to have data centers in each country or one central data center?

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 1:00:42

We have data center, of course, I mean, we need the data centers in every country. Because when you’re doing the telecom, you can’t have one central data center, because you need to get the actual Internet pipe connection. Either it’s from the other suppliers, or it’s from the submarine cable or something, you need to have your core every Telecom has its core where you have your main routers, you have your data center, because it’s not a few gigabytes of data, it’s a lot of data when you’re pulling all the data from the whole network all the time. So, we need to have this on site in our control. So, you see, some routers are the size of washing machines and things like this, you just can’t do it with some normal equipment, you need your own data center.

Matija Turk: 1:01:28

I can add a little bit on the Rok’s comment on the data center is as a telecom operator needs. A network core, which has Rok set is connected to the submarine cable bringing the Internet into the country, you need to put your servers for all the services that you’re offering to your customers. So, you do start with a few racks, but in time it grows. And then depending on the operation of the country, it can grow to a dedicated data center. And that’s the business part of that is the point where your growth is so much that it’s feasible to start offering services to other people, not other customers, but other operators. So, this is also part of the plan. And then multiple data centers in multiple countries allows you to share resources between operations if needed. So, in case the main data center for example, for Zambia has issues, Zambia customers can still receive service because of the redundant equipment in the neighboring country. And it’s an additional income stream on renting the space and services for Cloud for other operators and companies.

1:02:53

What is also really important, business wise, Rok sorry to steal this, but just a little bit interconnect business related here is once you have that, once you have the customers for your Telecom, you can sell to those customers, not only the basic services, but you can also sell them additional ones. So, once you have a customer, for example, some business entity, they will need PB access, they will need cloud services, they will need penetration testing and security. And all of that needs to be part of one package that you’re selling. So, and this is the power of 3air now because we have the ability to offer all of that. Am I right?

Sandi Bitenc: 1:03:42

Yeah.

Matija Turk: 1:03:44

So yes, data centers

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 1:03:47

That was data centers all the way.

Anita Mlakar: 1:03:53

Yeah, we have great comments coming in but also a question where can we follow Matija’s work any social media or something?

Matija Turk: 1:04:03

I’m sorry to say but you need to come to my office and then watch me work. I don’t have online presence.

Anita Mlakar: 1:04:14

Okay, so yeah, personal visits. Analogue.

Matija Turk: 1:04:24

You know the answer to this, follow 3air and then you’re there.

Anita Mlakar: 1:04:29

Okay, that’s a good answer.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:04:31

Yeah.

Anita Mlakar: 1:04:34

Do we have any more questions Sandi, is there some that we didn’t answer yet?

Sandi Bitenc: 1:04:42

I think there are still some that remained unanswered probably that we missed in the bunch of questions that we got. But either way we are already five minutes over our time. So, I think it is time to wrap it up. And I’m pretty sure we’ll have more, I see Matija really loves to talk online, and I would love to have him back. What do you guys think? Just tell me in the comments if we should invite Matija back.

Anita Mlakar: 1:05:15

I will give a comment live. Yes, we would like to have you back Matija.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:05:20

Yeah, it was a really nice one and educational. Technical, but still, we do have some technical community. Absolutely!

Anita Mlakar: 1:05:35

We have Richard saying next week again.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:05:39

Maybe not next week. Matija, also needs to work a bit.

Matija Turk: 1:05:43

A little bit. Yeah.

Anita Mlakar: 1:05:44

Back Matija- Back Matija- Back Matija- Definitely!

Matija Turk: 1:05:51

I’ll be happy. So, we set it up, no problem and technical questions. Let them add it, yeah.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:06:01

Perfect!

Anita Mlakar: 1:06:02

Okay. Thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you, of course, Matija. Thank you Rok and Sandi. We are here every week. But thank you for being with us also, and for answering all the questions. This is also a way as I said at the beginning, we really get to connected to our community to our people, and to giving them the answers to the questions that they have. And this was really a nice hour, and maybe a couple of minutes more. So, thank you very much to all of you, wherever you are, we have one from Croatia and Slovenia, and Dubai and everybody else, of course, around the world, have a great the rest of the day, or evening or morning, whatever it is. And we will be back here next Wednesday at 5pm Central European Time, but before that, I think we will be on Twitter space on Monday at the same time. So please stay tuned and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click like if you like this, and just be a part of this project. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Bye.

Sandi Bitenc: 1:07:09

Thank you! Bye.

Matija Turk: 1:07:11

Bye

Rok Mihailovic Krpan: 1:07:12

Bye

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