15th June 2021, Shenzhen, China. Radio China Team talked to Louis Rong (President of POCSTARS), a leading Push-to-talk-over-cellular (PoC) communications solution provider in China, to find out more about the company’s recent development on their PoC platform and to understand how POCSTARS plans their market during the Pandemic.

Radio China: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises from nearly all industries were facing a time of crisis. How did POCSTARS overcome the difficulties?

Louis Rong: The epidemic exerted a significant impact on all industries in the world, and POCSTARS was no exception. However, "crisis" represents both danger and opportunity. The dispatch system played an important role not only in the fight against the pandemic, but also in improving busines operation efficiency. Therefore, in the crisis POCSTARS insisted on increasing investment, continued to upgrade products and services, and introduced a lower-cost independent deployment solution called MiniServer for smaller-scale customers. In 2020, POCSTARS achieved 50% revenue growth over 2019.

Radio China: Since last year, we have noticed POCSTARS released many excellent platform features. Usually how does POCSTARS design a new feature?

Louis Rong: POCSTARS measures PoC solutions from six dimensions; they are features, terminals, security, customization, service and public & private convergence. All these six dimensions were, are and will be considered when we develop new products.

We aim to be the solution supplier who understands users best, and we intend to provide users with balanced and cost-effective solutions. 

In the past year,

1. We added important features such as dynamic re-grouping and video scheduling to enhance performance.

2. We completed the redesign of the terminal app and improved the PoC performance in areas of weak network coverage.

3. We added more than 100 software updates for the terminal version, shortened the terminal adaptation period and improved the ability of customization for users.

4. We provided a lower-cost independent deployment solution - MiniServer, which allows users to setup their own PoC server at an affordable price. This solution can secure the data well.

5. We setup an after-sale service IT system to ensure that every customer’s requirement can be well handled.

6. We introduced gateways that converge public and private networks so that POCSTARS PoC system can connect with the analog/DMR system.

Radio China: Will POCSTARS consider making hardware to meet the diverse needs of more users?

Louis Rong: We have never been involved in developing and manufacturing PoC radio hardware. The DNA of POCSTARS is a software developer; we have not gained much experience in hardware development. It is a wise choice for a company to make use of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses. When developing PoC solutions, we cooperate with many hardware suppliers to provide users with diversified and cost-effective one-stop solutions. MiniServer is also a software and hardware solution jointly launched by POCSTARS and professional IPC enterprises. In order to ensure the quality of this solution, we invested heavily in MiniServer and it has passed the MTBF test conducted by Moore Laboratory.

Radio China: How does POCSTARS think of the post-COVID economy?

Louis Rong: Growth is the mainstream. As the pandemic being controlled, all countries refocus on economic recovery. Better economy surely will bring greater opportunities for all, including PoC vendors. POCSTARS has made sufficient preparations for this and hopes to see the pandemic disappears as soon as possible.