Connectivity fuels businesses, enabling everything from digital transformation to exceptional customer experiences, and it should work anywhere, anytime, whether flying 35,000 feet above the ground or cruising thousands of miles across the ocean — with zero interruptions. However, for companies that operate connected fleets, such as airlines, cruise lines, shipping and more, getting reliable, cost-effective, always-on connectivity is a unique challenge to solve.

That’s why we built Neuron. We’re on a mission to transform connectivity for things that move, making digital experiences better for everyone.

Neuron is a vendor-neutral connectivity management platform. It enables digital experience transformation by combining real-time data and AI to provide companies with deep visibility, insights and control over their connectivity, across multiple providers and systems. With unprecedented access to real-time, spatiotemporal connectivity and performance data, business leaders can make informed decisions to save time, reduce costs, optimize network performance, boost revenue and accelerate digital experiences, wherever they are in the world.

Neuron, formerly called ESpace Networks, is a fast-growing Series A startup headquartered in the greater Miami region. Today, the Neuron platform is used by Fortune 500 companies in the airline and cruise industries, and is quickly expanding in commercial shipping, energy and more. In fact, today, Neuron and Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise company, announced a partnership to accelerate onboard connectivity across its global fleet.

So, why do companies need Neuron?

The Challenge: Navigating Legacy Business Models, Increasing Digital Demand and the Evolving LEO Landscape

Connectivity business models and technologies weren’t designed for things that move. Legacy solutions are siloed, lack data and insights, and each comes with cost and performance tradeoffs that become substantial when factoring in movement. That’s because external variables such as location, coverage, availability, weather and more impact performance as an object moves.

Historically, speed, coverage and reliability challenges have been met with one solution: buy more bandwidth. But, with fast-changing digital needs and expectations, this is no longer efficient or scalable. Increasing demand for streaming, video conferencing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, IoT and more is not only constraining businesses’ bandwidth, but also their productivity. That’s because, in an effort to use resources efficiently, many companies still spend time manually drafting policies to prioritize, restrict and route their traffic between their customers, crew and operations. And when there is an issue, they end up on a wild goose chase trying to track down the problem. They need a better way to get reliable connectivity across their fleets, without limits.

At the same time, the satellite industry is undergoing a major transformation. Emerging LEO technologies promise to be a game-changer, but according to Gartner, the LEO broadband market will be confusing and volatile through 2028. LEO is still in its infancy. And while there’s no question that LEO satellites will be an important part of these businesses’ strategies, they aren’t likely to replace decades of innovation across GEO, MEO, cellular, and other forms of connectivity that industries like aviation, cruise and shipping rely on — at least, not any time soon.

That brings us full circle: Connectivity business models and technologies weren’t designed for things that move. Fortunately, as these macro forces intersect, we’re beginning to see the early stages of a much bigger transformation — one that prioritizes flexibility, transparency and choice, putting end-user quality of experience (QoE) and application requirements at the center.

The Opportunity: Harnessing Unprecedented Data & Insights, Multi-Vendor Integrations and Artificial Intelligence

The companies poised to lead this next era, with the most innovative and differentiated digital experiences, will be those that take control over their connectivity and implement strategies around real-time data and insights, multi-vendor integrations and artificial intelligence.

That’s where Neuron comes in.

We built the Neuron connectivity management platform from the ground up for connected fleets. Scalable, elastic, always-on connectivity shouldn’t be a cost or performance roadblock for their digitalization or connected experience initiatives. Neuron is designed to help them navigate today’s complex and fast-changing connectivity ecosystem with the tools they need to ensure their connectivity supports exceptional experiences — today and in the future.

360-Degree Visibility & Actionable Insights

The connectivity ecosystem includes a wide range of providers and services spanning satellite, cellular and Wi-Fi, as well as a variety of equipment to support those services, including modems, routers, antennas and more. And all of that data lives in different systems. As a result, it’s nearly impossible for companies to quickly identify and resolve issues, and when it comes to creating traffic policies — it’s largely a guessing game.

Neuron 360, our business intelligence solution, helps companies address this challenge by bringing all of their connectivity data, end-to-end, onto the Neuron platform. It then consolidates that data into dashboards to help companies monitor and analyze their network performance and make more informed decisions. For example, Neuron 360 provides a QoE score to measure end-user experiences. If a customer sees a drop in their QoE score, Neuron 360 will help them quickly identify and resolve the issue.

Vendor-Neutral Platform for Multi-Vendor Integrations

For the best possible, always-on connectivity, companies should be able to choose the right mix of services tailored to their unique needs. However, in the connectivity ecosystem, many buyers today still experience vendor lock-in. Over the last 20+ years, we’ve seen SaaS transform businesses with a best-of-breed approach to IT technologies and systems. Not only has the agility, elasticity and flexibility of SaaS benefited buyers, but it also unlocked opportunities for the broader enterprise technology ecosystem, leading to an explosion of new innovations, products and services. It’s time to bring that ethos to the connectivity ecosystem, and jumpstart a new phase of business models and innovation.

The Neuron platform makes it easy for companies to integrate, monitor and manage multiple connectivity providers and systems in one place. The platform is vendor-neutral, meaning, Neuron does not provide connectivity services or sell bandwidth. We believe customers should be able to get an independent view of their connectivity performance so that they can make better decisions for their businesses across the connectivity lifecycle, from purchasing to execution. In addition, taking a best-of-breed, multi-vendor approach to connectivity will lead to better digital experiences for their customers, crew and operations.

AI-Powered Network Management for Fleets

Artificial intelligence is improving business outcomes across a number of key areas. A study found that organizations using AI to automate IT, business or network processes have reported cost savings and efficiencies (54%), improvements in IT or network performance (53%), and better experiences for customers (48%). With increasing digital demand and a shift to multi-vendor connectivity, AI-powered network management can free up significant resources, while ensuring a high-quality experience.

Neuron’s AI-based machine learning and optimization algorithms are built from the ground up for connected fleets. Neuron Grid, our advanced, AI-powered network management solution, automates traffic routing and network performance optimization across one or more providers. It does this by consolidating multiple services into a single pipe of bandwidth, and then it dynamically routes applications over the right service at the right time for the best performance – all while also managing consumption costs and constraints. For example, services that need high throughput and low latency, such as video conferencing, will be routed to the provider offering the best service across those metrics, whereas critical corporate data that may require reliability over speed could be routed over a different provider.

We’re excited about the journey ahead as companies in aviation, cruise, shipping and more accelerate their digital transformations. To learn more about how Neuron can help your business, send us a note here. And to stay up-to-date on our latest news and opportunities to join our fast-growing team, connect with us on LinkedIn. Neuron is headquartered in the greater Miami area, with offices in the UK and India, and remote teams around the world.

All images credited to Neuron