We Handle Simplifying Your Network So You Don’t Have To
Stephen Mammen, VP of Engineering, Solve Networks
The thing that sold me on networking wasn’t the technology itself. It was the stakes.
I was working as an electrical engineer at a defense contractor, meaning I spent my time looking at problems from a macro level and walking through every phase of the design process. But when the opportunity came up to support networking hardware, I jumped at it.
There was something I liked about the binary nature of it: a network either runs optimally, or it doesn’t. When I found myself on the ground floor of Solve Networks — identifying problems customers were having deploying cellular strategies — I got right to work.
Our customers are exceptional at what they do, whether that’s extracting oil and gas, managing a factory floor, or keeping retail point-of-sale systems running. But most of them aren’t connectivity experts. That gap is where we come in.
The misconception that costs you time and money…
One of the most common misconceptions we run into at Solve is that there’s only one way to approach a connectivity problem. Customers often come to us having already decided they need a specific carrier, or a specific type of SIM card, or a specific architecture…because that’s what they’ve always done.
The reality is, working with a trusted partner like Solve allows them to see the full breadth of connectivity options available and find the one (or two, or three) that actually optimizes deployments. Not a one-size-fits-all answer, but the right answer for your needs.
In my experience, the customers who struggle most before they find us were focused on a different part of their solution — and rightfully so. They’re not supposed to be experts in WAN connections or data architecture, and we don’t expect them to be. It’s what we’re here for.
Our customers are exceptional at what they do, whether that’s extracting oil and gas, managing a factory floor, or keeping retail point-of-sale systems running. But most of them aren’t connectivity experts. That’s what we mean when we say we “fill the gap” — coming alongside customers, learning their deployment(s), and handling the parts they shouldn’t have to touch.
A Customer Was Stuck. Here’s What We Did.
Here’s a quick story to illustrate what I’m talking about:
We had a customer who needed to leave their current SCADA provider, but they were locked into that provider’s SIM cards. That kind of situation can feel paralyzing — you’re stuck in a business relationship that isn’t working, with no clean way out.
Solve moved quickly. We deployed new SIM Cards, stood up a resilient quad-tunnel VPN architecture to our data centers, and cut them over to a new connectivity strategy, all within a couple of weeks.
Our customer was able to leave a non-optimal relationship and get connected to a solution built for them. That’s what we mean when we say we “fill the gap” — coming alongside customers, learning their deployment(s), and handling the parts they shouldn’t have to touch.
Three Things Every Network Has to Get Right
When it comes to improving customer architectures, I think about three things:
- Reliability
The data needs to come in. An architecture that works “most of the time” or “under standard operating conditions” isn’t good enough.
- Efficiency
The data needs to come in on time. Gone are the days of dual SIMs, multiple configurations, and the logistics headache of deploying carrier-specific SIM cards.
- Security
The data needs to be trustworthy. We lead customers toward private networks with VPN architectures that connect directly to us, avoiding public networks and insecure protocols.
Moving From Lost to Locked In
Someone recently asked me what motivates me most about the work we do. The honest answer: I get energized when I see a plan come together.
Customers often come to us a little lost — not sure what they need, not sure who to trust, maybe burned by a previous experience with a carrier or consultant who didn’t understand their environment.
Solve builds a plan. We execute it with the customer. Then, we watch it work.
The feedback we hear most often after a successful deployment is “we’re so relieved.” Knowing your connectivity strategy is handled, start to finish, is the outcome we’re always building toward.
Everything we do, we do to make connectivity simpler for our customers. You shouldn’t have to become a connectivity expert to connect your operation. That’s what we’re here for.
What’s next for the industry?
I see industrial IoT moving toward a place where more and more routers and connected devices have cellular connectivity embedded directly into them. The industry’s growing fast enough that the old model (where every deployment required a specific SIM card and carrier configuration) can’t keep up. Carriers will need to pivot toward more universal solutions because the siloing we’ve seen isn’t sustainable at the scale IoT demands.
On the security side, there’s a trend I think more customers should pay attention to: the application development layer. Too many operators are still relying on legacy protocols that are inherently insecure. We regularly see customers getting malicious traffic because their application layer isn’t built to modern standards.
Solve is already helping customers navigate both of these shifts. With eSIM-capable devices becoming more common, we work with customers to unlock embedded eSIMs using downloadable profiles through our carrier relationships — simplifying activations that used to require significant hands-on logistics. And when customers run into application-layer problems, we help them understand what parts of their architecture need to be brought up to a modern standard before those vulnerabilities become something worse.
It all comes down to this.
If someone could only remember one thing about Solve Networks, I’d want it to be:
Everything we do, we do to make connectivity simpler for our customers. You shouldn’t have to become a connectivity expert to connect your operation. That’s what we’re here for.
About the Author: Meet Stephen Mammen
Stephen is a seasoned engineering leader with more than two decades of experience designing and managing complex connectivity and IoT solutions. As Vice President of Engineering at Solve Networks, he oversees the technical backbone that powers multi-network SIMs, eSIM solutions, and private networks—ensuring customers have secure, resilient, and scalable connectivity for even the most demanding deployments.
During his time at Solve, Stephen has strengthened the company’s technical foundation, scaled network operations, and helped build innovative solutions that keep devices and systems connected across multiple carriers and geographies. Beyond work, Stephen is deeply involved in his faith and community, and a devoted family man with a wife and three children who keep him busy with soccer, basketball, tennis, flag football, and baseball.
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