Unstrung talks to a lot of companies that don’t have a snowball’s chance of ever succeeding. Sometimes it’s the management. More often it’s the idea. Most often it’s the fact that there are 90 other companies doing the same thing, but with different wording in their press releases.

Not so for a gem Unstrung recently discovered: Schema. This Israeli company is dedicated to optimization of carrier networks, which is good for the carriers, because the carriers seem to only have moderate dedication towards that goal.

And they’ve signed on big-name customers like Verizon, Motorola, and Cingular. Which is good for the industry, because if carriers are willing to pay for help in doing their basic service, eventually they’ll pay for value ads that every other small company is developing.

While they currently have about 70 employees in Israel and 20 in the US, the Schema technology has its development roots in missile guidance systems and warehouse management. The wireless side of things was spun off in 1998.

In a typical engagement, Schema spends about two months “schematizing” the operators network and cross referencing data sources. Schema covers frequency planning, network planning and data restructuring. “Heh?” You’re probably asking, unless you do this for a living. Think of it as the McDonald’s value meal of wireless network analysis. Fries, Coke, and the Burger.Basically these guys review everything in the network (from RF simulator predictions, drive tests, network and switch performance, and configuration databases) to come up with their solution.

But it’s the stats that really matter. In their initial engagements they have been able to increase network capacity between 20% and 50%. To the end user that means upwards of 20% reduction in dropped calls. In their work for one carrier around JFK airport in New York, they reduced the plan for 57 new cell sights to 13. That ads up to huge cost savings, which in turn ads up to the ability for carriers to actually implement the new networks they paid so much licensing money for.

Schema recently received $25.8 million in February. That’s about like getting $80 million last year at this time. The round was led by BRM Capital (www.brm.com) and will be used to support a growing sales and marketing presence, as well as to develop new products.

This is definitely one to keep an eye on.

Alex Norris spends his leisure time optimizing social networks.

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Credit: Unstrung