Paradise Mobile intends to test some 400 different products and services in Bermuda over the next few years that can be applied to outside markets.

The company also is set to expand its offering deep into the Caribbean in the near term, with new webpages viewable right now in the Cayman Islands already promising “a ridiculously fast, reliable experience” very soon “with a very competitive monthly bill”.

It is an early outline of the many different projects, programmes and partners in the foreseeable future.

The company plans to launch in six new markets over the next year, using Bermuda as its test bed. Each market will have unique challenges, with some high average-revenue-per-user enterprise regions and others in developing areas where affordability is key.

Sam Tabbara, the chief executive of Paradise Mobile, was a guest on Evan Kirstel’s Tech Impact podcast recently, discussing how his company was turning Bermuda into a living lab for telecom.

He said: “Bermuda is our first market. But we do have multiple markets. We do expect to announce at least half a dozen more markets in the next few months.

“Every one of them will have unique problems and unique challenges. A product that’s built in Bermuda may be fit for purpose for a specific demographic or for a specific use case, whereas something that’s built maybe in a lower ARPU market would not be fit for North America.

“The key point here is we are solving real problems,” he said. “It’s not a technical proof of concept. We are actually proving market traction because in the 400 different products and services that we intend to test in Bermuda over the next few years as an example when we prove them out, we’ve proven them out with a demographic that models as we mentioned before.”

When asked why Bermuda was chosen for this telecom experiment, Mr Tabbara said it was because the island really does “punch above its belt” in many ways.

He also explained how its demographics are similar to that of a small North American town, in terms of travel, education and income.

He said: “You have close to 74 per cent of the Fortune 500s that actually have offices in Bermuda. So even though it’s very small, it really does punch above its belt as well as obviously the intrinsic things that most people probably know about Bermuda from the touristic perspective that it's a great quality of life. It's safe. It's beautiful.”

Mr Tabbara said Bermuda’s transition and strategy towards diversification in the public and private sectors also created the environment that made the island a suitable destination for the reimagination of what a telecom could be.

The island is already strong in insurance, reinsurance and financial services and developing a digital and fintech model, so it was a clear that “Bermuda already had a blueprint on how to be best in the world”.

The right regulation, government incentives and tax propositions were needed to allow for a foundation and the space for local innovation.

“The weakest link really was how do we build the better plumbing — the most agile, flexible, advanced network in the world, where you can build new products and services on top of using a very different architecture and a very different business model than traditional telco.”

Telecom experts themselves, his team knew what was wrong with traditional telecoms and needed to avoid legacy baggage. On the technical side, they went cloud native from the beginning, including AI Radio Access Network cloud infrastructure.

Mr Tabbara said: “That makes it modular and software-driven. We can deploy new features in weeks, not years.”

This modular approach gives Paradise Mobile the ability to easily swap vendors or algorithms. It does not compete with Google Cloud or Amazon Web Services but partners with them to co-develop new products and services.

The chief executive said: “We’re not buying tech. We’re building ecosystems.” The Paradise Mobile model, he said, was reimagining telecom from the ground up.

Mr Kirstel, a tech analyst and influencer, has 600,000 social media followers. His Tech Impact podcast highlighted the interview with features being offered by Paradise Mobile: “Thirty‑second eSIM onboarding, unlimited plans and millisecond latency for Sail Grand Prix — Paradise Mobile is turning Bermuda into a living lab for telecom. Want carriers that ship in weeks, not years?”

Mr Kirstel’s views on the interview were well-documented on his LinkedIn post: “Take BermudAir, the island’s home-grown airline. The company needed real-time connectivity for cockpit systems, crew communications and regulatory reporting. Their legacy provider couldn’t keep up, causing delays and unnecessary costs.”

Mr Tabbara replied: “We built a global solution. We connected everything: cockpit, ground crews, even over-the-air preflight systems. The result: more on-time departures and lower costs.”

Mr Kirstel added: “Then there’s SailGP, a global sailing league dubbed Formula One on water. When they came to Bermuda for training, they required ultra-low-latency connectivity for hundreds of sensors, cameras, and internet of things systems on high-speed foiling boats. Paradise Mobile delivered, exceeding the performance specifications.”