Erik Bjontegard's company, Total Communicator Solutions, provides a proximity beacon platform called Spark Compass that uses Bluetooth beacons and smartphones to deliver personalized location-based messages and promotions to consumers. The system has been implemented at various venues like supermarkets, universities, and government buildings to increase engagement. Locally, the San Diego Convention Center has the world's largest beacon network installation with 300 beacons serving convention attendees. The document also discusses several other local technology companies that are developing solutions in areas like the Internet of Things, blockchain technology, and wireless networks who met with Verizon Ventures as part of a CommNexus program to help push their ideas forward.

1. November 10, 2014 SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL Page 23www.sdbj.com
Making Closer
Connections
SPECIAL REPORT TECHNOLOGY
A
s you make your way north on the
crowded sidewalks of San Diego’s
Gaslamp Quarter, your smartphone
suddenly comes to life. A nearby
restaurant has managed to break through the
riot of colors and sounds there and successfully
deliver an invitation: Come to happy hour.
That is how Erik Bjontegard’s system works.
Bjontegard, CEO of Total Communicator
Solutions Inc., helps his clients deliver personalized
messages with the help of several things:
smartphones, software and a rapidly proliferating
technology — low-energy wireless “proximity
beacons”that pinpoint a phone owner’s location,
outdoors or in. Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), the
San Diego Padres and Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M)
have all experimented with the beacon concept,
sending messages to cellphone users that opt in.
Bjontegard provides the system, a mobile
marketing platform called Spark Compass.
He and his partners have put the system to work
in supermarkets, delivering coupons to people
who linger in front of certain coolers.
At the University of Mississippi, a campuswide
beacon network has increased sports attendance.
At a big government agency headquarters in
Washington, a similar system promotes healthy
behaviors. For example, people who stand in front
of the elevator at Health and Human Services for
12 seconds might get a gentle reminder on their
cellphones that it would be more healthful to take
the stairs. The app makes a game out of the whole
experience, awarding 10 points for following that
advice.
Locally, the San Diego Convention Center has a
network of 300 beacons serving convention-goers
and organizers. It’s the largest such installation in
the world, according to Bjontegard. Tradeshow
programming and crowd control are just two areas
where convention center officials could use the
technology, he said.
Building Bridges
Bjontegard’s proximity beacon platform is
just one emerging technology that has piqued
the interest of Verizon Ventures. Representatives
of Verizon (NYSE: VZ) were in San Diego in
the middle of October for some rare face time
with several people who are trying to push their
technology ideas forward. The meetings were
arranged by the business group CommNexus
under that organization’s MarketLink program.
CommNexus has hosted similar get-togethers
with other big companies such as Samsung and
Nokia.
The San Diego companies meeting Verizon
BY BRAD GRAVES
Proximity-Beacon Systems Part of Promising
Technology on Display at Verizon Ventures Meeting
RELATED STORY THE LIST
With ‘Computational Photography
Platform,’ Seeing is Believing24 38 Technology
Solution Providers
Technology page 37
Melissa Jacobs
Vatsal Shah founded Litmus Automation to be a bridge that allows applications to exchange
information with the Internet of Things – collecting data and insights from machines,
appliances and personal devices.
Melissa Jacobs
Erik Bjontegard is CEO of Total Communicator Solutions Inc., whose system connects
beacons (device in his right hand) with smartphones. He helped the San Diego Convention
Center build its network of 300 proximity beacons.

2. SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL - Special Report Page 37www.sdbj.comNovember 10, 2014
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representatives in mid-October included
Litmus Automation, ENT Technologies
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Litmus Automation is Vatsal Shah’s
first startup. With it, Shah hopes to grab
part of a market that could be worth $19
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Litmus Automation is stepping into
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devices and applications.
“We are a bridge,” Shah said.
At the application end of the bridge,
there might be databases or sophisticated
business software, such as that made by
SAP (NYSE: SAP). Loop helps users
collect insights from their machines, Shah
said, adding that the software is “highly
scalable.”
Four very big names in business are
experimenting with Loop, the CEO said
— adding that two are paying customers.
Litmus Automation is a year-old
business with nine employees. Investors
so far consist of friends and family.
At age 24 and one year out of
graduate school, Shah has a contagious
enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. “I like
the whole game,” he said — even the 14-
hour days and seven-day weeks.
Solving the Trust Issue
Mike Mossbarger also wants to build
bridges, but in a different way. He speaks
from page 23
Technology:
about the need for strangers to trust each
other in the marketplace. “Even at the
flea market, you can make eye contact
with someone,” Mossbarger said.
People doing business on the Internet,
however, can’t read each other’s faces
or body language, said Mossbarger, the
executive director of the ENT Foundation
and business development chief for its
business arm.
Previously, he said, people have
solved the Internet trust issue with
cryptography. Public key infrastructure
— or PKI for short — has a trusted
third party vouching for everyone in the
system. The problem, Mossbarger said,
is that clever people have found ways to
bypass such a system.
Mossbargerspeaksof creatingasystem
he calls “relational key infrastructure”
that is much more secure — and could
become a standard. The system can
be compared in some ways to the way
Bitcoin keeps tabs on its system —
though Mossbarger said that ENT’s
system is more advanced than Bitcoin’s.
Two other peers in this realm are IBM
(NYSE: IBM), which has a project called
Adept, and an independent project called
Etherium.
The Wild West of the Internet still
needs taming.
“If you don’t solve the trust issue,”
Mossbarger said, “the Internet of Things
will go nowhere.”
Wider Horizons for Wi-Fi
The Internet has evolved; so, too,
have wireless communications. In a
couple of decades, cellphones have
gone from second-generation to fourth-
generation technology. What’s next?
Verizon Ventures wanted to speak with
the San Diegans who have ideas.
Those people included Masa
Nakamura and Behzad Mohebbi, the
thinkers behind nCore Communications.
Though only a couple of months old,
nCore has an ambitious goal: give
wireless operators the “fatter pipe” they
want for sending data, while keeping
Technology page 40
Melissa Jacobs
Erik Bjontegard sees his company’s platform, Spark Compass, as a tool to send the right
message to the right person at the right time.

3. Page 40 www.sdbj.com SAN DIEGO BUSINESS JOURNAL November 10, 2014
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capital expenditures down.
The business’ engineers are writing
software to take LTE — the high-speed
data-transfer technology that makes
sending video a breeze — and send that
data over Wi-Fi networks. An advantage
to Wi-Fi is that it uses unlicensed
spectrum, that is, airwaves that are not
owned by a single wireless carrier.
nCore has submitted multiple
patent applications for its technology,
Nakamura said, adding that the partners
hope to demonstrate their product by
the middle of next year — or sooner, if
funding becomes available.
“We have good traction already,” he
said, adding that large operators have
asked to test the technology.
Nakamura — who is on his fourth
startup business — said nCore’s solution
might even appeal to businesses in the
developing world who want a low-cost
cellular infrastructure.
Elsewhere in the wireless space, a
company called Phluido is taking a
different approach to cellphone networks.
Business partners Dario Fertonani and
Alan Barbieri see a future where users
migrate from the monolithic cell tower
by the highway to a group of what the
industry calls “small cells.” Since the
bulk of cellphone traffic now originates
indoors, Fertonani said, engineers see the
need for cells that serve areas as limited
as a neighborhood or even a single home.
Phluido’s founders hope to offer the
market software for small cells — and
they want to offer that software in the
cloud. It’s a model that offers technical
challenges, Fertonani acknowledged. For
example, operators will have to live with
from page 37
Technology: the speed of the Internet connection they
get. But Fertonani indicated he is up for
a challenge.
Like the other companies that met
with Verizon Ventures, Phluido is young
— it opened its doors in March — and
is operating as a lean startup. Fertonani
said the company works with freelance
engineers overseas. The company is going
after multiple patents on its technology,
and hopes to demonstrate its product in
the spring of next year, Fertonani said.
The business is also looking for funding.
Doing the Right Things
Back at the foot of Fifth Avenue, Erik
Bjontegard lingers, unseen.
Physically, the businessman is 10
miles away, in the conference room of
the San Diego Business Journal. A map
on the screen of his laptop computer
shows the San Diego Convention
Center, Harbor Drive and surrounding
neighborhoods. Dots on the map show
the locations of cellphones connected
to the beacon network. There on Fifth
Avenue are places where restaurants
could theoretically approach people
on the sidewalk and, with a cellphone
message, entice them with a happy-hour
offer.
Bjontegard sums up his platform as a
tool to send the right message to the right
person at the right time.
The technology is a hit on the
university campus at Oxford, Miss.,
which has installed hundreds of beacons.
The “Rebel Rewards” system at Ole
Miss steers people to sports events that
normally take second billing to the
football program.
Other schools in the Southeastern
Conference have taken notice.
“Every SEC school is coming after us
now,” Bjontegard said.
Melissa Jacobs
Vatsal Shah, 24 and one year out of graduate school, has grown Litmus Automation to nine
employees.