Oculeus provides software solutions for telecommunications service providers, network operators, and other providers of voice and messaging services. Its product portfolio includes solutions for interconnect wholesale management, retail voice management, and telecommunications fraud protection. The company’s AI-driven solutions use technologies designed to help service providers build and maintain efficient and highly automated network and business operations. Oculeus has served customers worldwide since 2004 as a technology partner and strategic vendor. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Oculeus Founder and CEO Arnd Baranowski to learn more about the company’s origins, its telecommunications management platforms, AI-powered fraud prevention, and its work on securing global communications.
How Oculeus Started
When asked how the idea for Oculeus came together, Baranowski explained:
As the company’s Founder and CEO, Oculeus’ story is one that I always enjoy telling.
Our journey began in the early 2000s as part of a consulting engagement with a telecoms operator in Central Europe. We were engaged to develop a software package to improve the management of the client’s interconnect and wholesale voice operations.
At the time, most commercially available OSS/BSS software was either prohibitively expensive, overly rigid or lacked real-time capabilities.
This initial project was a great success and we then began attracting additional business with other telecommunications service providers across Europe.
With each new project, we expanded the software tools we developed and began turning these custom tools into standardized software products.
Now nearly twenty-five years later, we are a global company with customers, partners and staff around the world.
Today, we offer a full portfolio of software solutions that help telecommunications operators and network operators better manage their service operations.
Core Products And Features
When asked about Oculeus’ core products and features, Baranowski detailed:
Our original flagship product, Captura, is a wholesale management system for telecom operators. Captura evolved directly from the early software tools we developed.
Today, it is a comprehensive management platform that automates the commercial and technical operations of wholesale and interconnect telecom traffic for both voice and SMS.
Our current Captura NG version provides operators with a unified, highly automated, real-time environment to manage complex routing, pricing and billing.
Another core product of ours is a telecom fraud prevention solution.
We developed this solution to help service providers move away from slow, siloed fraud detection practices that fraudsters were exploiting with increasingly advanced technologies to inflict serious financial loss on both operators and their customers.
Our solution, Oculeus AFS, leverages anomaly detection and AI to monitor live telecommunications traffic and automatically block fraudulent activity, such as PBX hacking, International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF) and many others, before significant financial damage is caused.
How The Technology Has Evolved
When asked how Oculeus’ technology has evolved over time, Baranowski said:
Oculeus has always focused on providing telecom operators with a unified and automated framework to streamline their core operational workflows.
The application of artificial intelligence has played a significant role in the evolution of our software solutions.
For example, the AI in our telecom fraud prevention system allows operators to analyze massive volumes of live telecommunications traffic and instantly identify and block fraudulent activity in real time, something that was previously impossible through human oversight or manual monitoring.
In Captura NG, we utilize AI to automate complex operational tasks, such as ingesting disparate, non-standard pricing offers and rate sheets from interconnect partners and converting them into standardized operational data automatically.
Customers And Benefits
When asked who Oculeus’ customers are and how they benefit from the company’s technology, Baranowski explained:
We have over 170 customers worldwide across the entire telecommunications industry.
Our client base ranges from small, regional operators serving niche markets to large, Tier-1 service providers managing global telecommunications operations.
Our telco customers are benefiting from efficient operations and highly automated workflows.
By eliminating labor-intensive, manual processes, we free their staff to focus on more strategic, higher-value initiatives.
We are very proud of the fact that most of our customers consider Oculeus as a strategic technology partner and not just another vendor.
Recently Released Products
When asked about recently launched products and market feedback, Baranowski highlighted the company’s two-factor network solution:
Earlier this year, we released a two factor network (2FN) solution to directly address Caller Line Identification (CLI) spoofing.
CLI spoofing is a particularly damaging form of telecom fraud where fraudsters manipulate the information shown on a recipient’s caller ID to make malicious calls appear as if they originate from a trusted source, such as a bank, government office or utility provider.
To stop this, Oculeus 2FN creates a secure, parallel verification path outside the main voice signaling network.
This allows originating and terminating service providers to communicate directly and cross-verify the authenticity of calls and messages in real time using secure digital signatures.
So, for example, if an inbound international call attempts to impersonate a domestic subscriber roaming abroad, our peer-to-peer check instantly flags that the roaming number has been spoofed.
The feedback from telcos and regulatory bodies has confirmed what we saw in the market: introducing a dedicated second factor for caller identity is critical for the telecommunications industry to reclaim the integrity of voice services and protect subscribers.
R&D And Product Development
When asked about Oculeus’ current research and development efforts and new product plans, Baranowski explained:
Many of our current R&D activities and new product development plans are focused on solving vulnerabilities in global communications security.
A prime example is international interoperability.
Frameworks like STIR/SHAKEN have generally not worked properly when dealing with non-IP networks. We are in the process of solving this and recently ran live cross-border trials with a U.S. partner to prove our out-of-band authentication technology can securely verify international traffic, regardless of underlying network infrastructure.
In parallel, we are also looking closely at the vulnerabilities in enterprise communications.
As recent industry leaks have shown, standard static encryption is no longer enough and we currently have R&D activities and new product development plans underway in this direction.
A Layered Approach To Communications Security
When invited to share his final thoughts, Baranowski emphasized the importance of taking a broader approach to communications security:
Relying solely on standard encryption creates a false sense of security.
Yes, encryption is an important element of security, but it is only one element of securing a system.
Real security has to consistently run through every layer, including the communication network, the server and app architecture, and the applications themselves, all deployed in hardened environments.
We will have more to share on this soon.
