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Throughout the incredible journey of the telecom OSS/BSS sector over the last 10 years, VanillaPlus has remained a reliable source of both key news but also informative, objective and thought-provoking assessments of the key trends which have shaped our industry. I am looking forward to VanillaPlus and their more recent Stream journal continuing to play a key role in providing valuable insights as we enter one of the most exciting phases of the telecoms OSS/BSS market evolutions.

Kieran Moynihan
Vice President & CTO Telecoms
IBM Tivoli Division

Network Operators/VNOs

EXCLUSIVE: Ericsson & LHS explain merger plans

In an exclusive interview with VanillaPlus magazine (Feb 2008 issue),
Jan Wäreby, head of Ericsson's Business Unit Multimedia and Wolfgang
Kroh, CEO of LHS have described the reasons behind the Swedish giant's
surprise acquisition of LHS, a leading billing and customer care
systems provider.

VanillaPlus asked: "Why did Ericsson need to acquire LHS and why now?"

"LHS' leading billing and customer care solutions, together with Ericsson's leadership in real-time charging and mediation, make us a leading player in revenue management and strengthen our overall multimedia offering," replied Wäreby. "We feel very strongly that convergent charging and billing solutions with real-time charging capabilities will become a standard requirement for operators to support the products and services that subscribers increasingly expect.

The interview went on to investigate what will now change and how the combination of LHS' billing and customer care solutions with Ericsson's real-time charging and mediation offering will benefit their operator customers?

What, we wondered, has been the response of LHS’ customers, operators and partners?

"The response from our customers has been extremely positive," said Kroh. "I believe most of our customers recognise the expertise and also the stability that a company of Ericsson’s size brings. For our partners that compete with Ericsson, such as the other major network equipment vendors, the news of the acquisition was understandably greeted with caution. However, we have given assurances that LHS and Ericsson are committed to an open approach and that all such partners will be treated fairly and with an even hand. While discussions are still ongoing with some of these partners, we are continuing to engage in new partner projects. By way of example, Alcatel-Lucent has won three new customers for LHS since the announcement of the Ericsson acquisition.



"The response from our integrator partners has also been very positive. They recognise the additional growth and number of projects that an organisation like Ericsson brings to the table, and wish to participate in the new opportunities and growth that the acquisition will generate," added Kroh.

The two men are well known in the telecoms industry. Jan Wäreby is SVP of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and head of Business Unit Multimedia. From 2002 to 2006, Wäreby was Corporate EVP, and head of Sales & Marketing, for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and played an integral role in establishing the joint venture.

From 2000 to 2001 Wolfgang Kroh held senior positions at Digiquant Deutschland, in Neu-Isenburg, and subsequently became managing director at EMC² Deutschland. In 2006, he returned to LHS having previously worked there from 1997 to 2000, and was named CEO in July of that year.

 

VNO discloses new 3-year Eurosport deal

BARCELONA, 27.2.2008: Vanco, the market-leading global virtual network operator (VNO), has exclusively disclosed to a handful of European media including VanillaPlus, the signature of a 3-year, multi-million Euro contract with sports channel, Eurosport. Eurosport is broadcast to 240 million viewers in 59 countries.



Vanco proposed a hybrid internet virtual private network (VPN) solution with MPLS Matrix and Active Back-up on ADSL using serveral access technologies, Ethernet, leased lines and xDSL. The new network connects a dozen sites globally, including France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and China.



Stephane Gaude, Eurosport's infrastructure manager said: "Vanco's solution ... was customised to our needs combining different carriers' solutions and unique technical offers such as the usage of several backbones and local xDSL access. From a financial point of view the solution will allow us to considerably reduce the cost of our network."



"This deal is a great example of how a company has realised the benefits that our VNO model can bring them," said Eric Havette, Vanco's general manager, Southern Europe.



The Active Negotiation Process (ANP) proposed by Vanco allows Eurosport to measure the benefits brought by the VNO model. Said Eurosport's Gaude: "Vanco can work with every technology available on the market. The ANP, a technology and price benchmark, allows us to review our infrastructure costs and migrate our solution if it is appropriate every year. This means we can constantly update to a more convenient solution for our needs which is also cost-effective."



The news comes hard on the heels of recent contract wins for Vanco with Premier Foods (5-year deal for MPLS network connecting 83 UK sites), and Brink's Inc, (US$2m deal for a fully managed back-up network based on IPSec connecting 92 sites in the US and Puerto Rico). 

Antel signs fully convergent rating and billing contract with Intec

URUGUAY & UK, March 4, 2008: Intec, a provider of business and operations support systems (BSS/OSS),


has signed a significant multi-million dollar convergent billing contract with Uruguay's government-owned 


operator Antel. 


Intec’s Convergent Billing solution will reportedly enable Antel to be the first convergent operator in Latin 


America to offer network and service convergence, through pre-paid and post-paid wireline, wireless and 


broadband services with fully convergent, real-time charging, billing and customer care capabilities, as well 


as subscriber self-care and electronic recharge. This is also the largest contract Intec has secured to date 


and will be deliverable in 2008 and 2009.


“By providing complete convergence across all payment and subscription types, Antel can now shift from


a service-centric business model to a more customer-centric approach where they can create targeted 


campaigns to meet the individual customer’s needs, thus improving the overall customer experience 


and giving Antel an edge over its competitors,” said Andrew Taylor, Intec's CEO.


“Antel selected a solution to become fully convergent, giving us the flexibility we need to become more 


customer oriented, able to offer our customers a complete portfolio of services through one unified 


billing system, thereby supporting our mission to be the leading telecommunications service provider in 


the country,” said Edgardo Carvalho, president of Antel. “We underwent a competitive tender process 


and selected Intec based on their proposal and their proven experience.”


Antel is the largest operator in Uruguay, which has a population of 3.5 million. It is the only provider to 


offer fixed, wireless and broadband services in the country. Between its wireline, mobile and broadband 


services Antel has more than 2.5 million subscribers, with 80% of its mobile subscribers being pre-paid.


“Antel’s current pre-paid billing system was no longer able to meet the volume demands of its growing 


wireless customer base. Additionally, maintaining three separate billing systems for pre-paid and post-


paid wireless, wireline and broadband customers was costly and prohibited cross-selling and bundling 


opportunities due to disjointed views of Antel’s customer base,” said Ian Watterson, Intec’s CALA 


regional director.  “Intec’s Convergent Billing solution will address these issues by providing scalable 


functionality to support all pre-paid and post-paid customer care, charging and billing services in one 


platform, using a common subscriber database, thus decreasing operational expenses.”  

How dumb is a dumb pipe?, asks Hugh Roberts

In the first of a series of articles in VanillaPlus magazine challenging received

wisdom, Hugh Roberts asks in the April issue (out Monday 7th April), is the

dumb pipe a recipe for disaster… or a clever way to exploit network

infrastructure?



Hugh, a senior strategist at Patni Telecoms Consulting, looks at the reality

behind the industry’s fear of becoming a series of interconnected dumb pipes,

and in particular at the role that the vendor community might need to play if

profitability for network operators is to be assured.



In a communications ecosystem increasingly driven by content revenues, the

nightmare scenario for telecoms operators has often been characterised as that

of relegation to the role of a ‘dumb bit pipe’, living off the scraps of the other

players in the new value chain. Indeed, at this year’s Mobile World Congress,

Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin warned operators against this and stressed the

importance of focusing on delivering content and internet services of their own.



The telco’s position is under threat not only from the ‘X-factor’ companies such

as Google, Yahoo!, Apple and Amazon, but also from other branded horizontal

retailers and hardware manufacturers such as Nokia and even Intel, who are

now taking a much more active role in the provision of content services via both

fixed and mobile.

'The Queen' drops in on telecoms fraud forum

March 31, 2008, Windsor, UK: Delegates attending a recent telecoms fraud forum were astonished when
‘Her Majesty the Queen’ arrived to preside over one of the conference
sessions.

The
event was a user forum for customers of fraud management solution provider,
Neural Technologies (Nt). It was hosted
in Windsor, the home town of Her
Majesty, and Neural Technologies took advantage of
this fact to give the event a royal theme.
Not only did a very convincing look-alike of the Queen attend the event,
but the delegates were also treated to a private evening tour of the State
Apartments at Windsor
Castle.

Delegates
from 18 countries attended the forum, an annual event designed to enable Nt’s
customers to share fraud knowledge, learn
how to achieve the best out of Nt’s Minotaur™ fraud and risk management
solution and to contribute to future product development.

Luke Taylor, commercial director at Neural Technologies stated, “We are
committed to supporting our customers and facilitating information sharing -
this event provides an excellent forum for that purpose. We complement this with online seminars held
on a quarterly basis to ensure that our customers are continually kept
up-to-date on any new product enhancements and fraud trends.”

Addressable advertising may soon be adopted in cable and IPTV services

Openet loyalty app allows Tier 1s to enhance customer experience

April
18, 2008 – Openet, a provider of transactional intelligence for the world’s largest and most diverse service providers, has launched its new Loyalty Programs application.
Through the Openet FusionWorks
Product Suite™, Openet is
enabling service providers to more effectively leverage their existing
transactional data to enhance and extend customer relationships.

According to Openet, telecom
operators are finally realising that service innovation and convergence
are not the only ways to increase revenue and ARPU (average revenue per
user). Instead, they are shifting their primary focus from customer
acquisition to customer loyalty — innovating creative loyalty and affinity
programmes to increase “stickiness” and improve customer satisfaction and
brand perception. Innovative loyalty programmes can stimulate service usage
and the deployment of new opportunities, however they must be timely,
targeted and relevant in order for customers to see and appreciate the
value.

“Service
provider marketers are racing to keep up with customer expectations for
personalised services and
enhancements, and well-designed loyalty programmes are a tremendous
opportunity to communicate directly with enticing offers that will keep
customers coming back,” said Openet CMO, Mike Manzo. “The key is accurate and
real-time data on usage, thresholds and style of account to ensure you’re
targeting the right offer to the right customer. Leveraging FusionWorks
together with our Loyalty Programs application gives marketers the
real-time visibility and actionable information to capture and retain
customer attention and revenue, now and in the
future.”

Some
of the enhancements more readily possible with
Openet’s Loyalty Programs
application include:

•
Awarding points based on usage, tenure or transaction thresholds

• Points
programmes that allow customers to take advantage of service provider and
third-party offerings

• Free initial usage of new or existing services,
such as SMS, video downloads and ringtones. For example, service providers
can offer long-time customers a free month of text messages to coincide
with a user’s birthday month.



Tier
1s are constantly faced with high churn rates for pre-paid, hybrid and contract
subscribers. The ability to segment customer data brings service providers
the chance to identify the right situations where loyalty programmes can
either enhance a relationship or counteract the timing when users might
consider another provider, such as when a pre-paid customer is about to
top off and extend minutes. As service providers focus on extending
customer relationships and revenue for next generation services, capturing
and keeping customer attention is paramount, and targeted loyalty
offerings — such as these enabled by Openet — are
a direct way to positively impact lifetime subscriber value, improve
satisfaction and brand perception, and stimulate new services usage.

Telekom Austria selects Tribold for centralised product catalog platform

Telekom Austria AG has chosen Tribold to provide a centralised product 


catalog and management capability, a move that will centralise the disparate 


product catalogs currently in place at Austria's leading communications 


services provider.  The new platform will allow for the creation of new products


and services across product lines and feature configurable products and


add-ons to allow Telekom Austria's marketing team to create customised


service offerings.  The centralised product catalog will ensure


operational savings and efficiencies and reduce the time to market for


new services.





Tribold's Product Portfolio Manager(TM) suite will integrate fully into


Telekom Austria's BSS/OSS applications, providing a single,


comprehensive view of product information across Telekom Austria's


service offerings and automating the process of product management


end-to-end.





Helmut Leopold, managing director, Platform and Technology Management,


Telekom Austria, commented: "A centralised catalog is essential in


effective product management in the increasingly competitive world of


communications.  Frequent and rapid new product introduction is central


to retaining a competitive advantage, acquiring new customers and


retaining existing ones.  The disparate nature of our existing product


related information in different BSS/OSS systems was clearly having an


impact on our ability to deliver new services quickly and


cost-effectively.  Centralised product catalog plays one of the


cornerstone roles in the transformation of our comprehensive BSS/OSS


landscape."  

QUOTE OF THE MONTH: Inaccurate Billing

Accurate billing is still proving
to be a challenge with many ‘triple play’ providers under- and over-billing for
content. So VanillaPlus doffs its cap to James Brunson of Spirent who was quoted as follows recently.

Brunson, Landslide product
marketing manager at Spirent, explained: “We’re seeing a common theme across
many operators worldwide in that there can be issues when it comes to billing
accurately. Many of these glitches are due to poor network intelligence and the
fact that many triple play providers have grown by acquisition meaning a
‘mishmash’ of systems which don’t always talk accurately to each other all of
the time.



"It’s not uncommon to find network nodes which are known to be
inaccurate with rules written to counter-balance inaccurate billing. Whilst
these are accurate most of the time, it is not fail-safe. There are particular
issues when it comes to differentiating between ‘session-based billing’ which is
flat-rate or pay for duration (such as an international phone call) and
‘service-based billing’, where one pays extra for specific content (such as
video on demand). As such many customers are being billed
inaccurately," added Brunson.

Either way, operators stand to
lose. Overbilled customers may complain and overload customer service staff and
help lines. There is also the risk of churn should they remain dissatisfied. And
obviously customers which are under billed represent lost
revenue.



Brunson continued: "Deep packet inspection will
certainly help to look at service based billing and discover exactly what
customers are being billed for. However it is just as important that operators
test continuously to ensure that rules written relate to actual traffic
patterns.”



While this may not come as news to many service providers, VanillaPlus finds it
refreshing to hear such candour on a widespread industry problem.

Guinea's Sotelgui selects new Interconnect system from Cerillion

London, 2nd July 2008 – Guinean telecoms operator, Sotelgui is
set to implement Interconnect Manager from convergent billing
specialist, Cerillion Technologies to support billing, settlement and
least cost routing for all of its interconnect agreements. The new
contract is an expansion of the existing relationship between the two
companies; Sotelgui has been a customer of Cerillion’s CRM and Billing
solution for five years.



Cerillion Interconnect Manager will provide Sotelgui with revenue
assurance by enabling it to bill interconnect partners accurately and
reconcile invoices received. The solution will also allow Sotelgui to
re-rate actual traffic data against individual offers from partners in
seconds, enabling it to choose the most cost-effective route in each
case.



In addition, Cerillion Interconnect Manager provides a universal
formatter for partners’ tariff tables. This will allow Sotelgui to
accept tariff tables in multiple formats, thus dramatically reducing
the time needed to load data and enabling Sotelgui to manage many more
partners than would otherwise have been possible.



Louis Hall, Cerillion’s chief executive, says, “With growth in the
African telecoms market continuing to escalate, the need to have an
efficient interconnect system in place is becoming an increasingly
urgent issue for African operators. By enabling the company to manage
its interconnect partners efficiently and accurately, we are confident
that Interconnect Manager will help Sotelgui to maximise the return on
investment (RoI) for existing network assets and improve overall
profitability.”

Russia's SMM uses NDS to protect IP and mobile TV content

 

 

 

London, UK. 24
July, 2008 – NDS, a leading provider of technology solutions
for digital pay-TV, today announced that Russian media giant Sistema Mass Media has selected the NDS Unified Headend™ to manage and protect TV content delivery to subscribers
across both IP and mobile networks.



The NDS Unified
Headend™ integrates conditional access (CA), Digital Rights Management (DRM) and
third party applications, allowing operators to deliver secure broadcast and
Video-On-Demand (VOD) services to a variety of devices – set-top boxes (STBs),
mobile phones, PCs, Portable Media Players (PMPs) and digital video recorders
(DVRs). SMM will use the NDS Unified Headend to deliver content to STBs, PCs and
mobile devices with optimum operational efficiency, using a single system to
control content distribution.



SMM’s
deployment will include VideoGuard Mobile™, NDS’ secure mobile TV solution, part of the NDS Unified Headend, to
protect its upcoming DVB-H mobile TV service. Digital Teleradiobroadcasting Ltd (DTB), an SMM
subsidiary, will launch the mobile TV service.



The DVB-H
service will debut in Moscow, which will be followed by a series of launches in
16 other Russian cities with populations of over one million. Unlike most other
DVB-H deployments which are tied to a specific mobile operator and require a
subscription and operator-specific SIM, SMM’s upcoming DVB-H service will be
available to all Russian mobile subscribers regardless of their network service
provider.



VideoGuard
Mobile supports both the Open Security Framework (OSF) and OMA BCAST smartcard
profile standards and offers a clear and seamless migration path between both.
VideoGuard Mobile is fully compliant with DVB-H, DVB-SH, DMB, MediaFLO, CMMB and
STIMI standards.

BT buys Silicon Valley's Ribbit for US$105m

London, UK. July 29, 2008 - Ribbit has been acquired by UK incumbent telco, BT for  $105m.  Ribbit is an open platform for multi-protocol communication, that is said by its US creators to "empower a new market of voiceware applications and services".  BT's mission with Ribbit is to accelerate voice innovation by enabling
developers to bring to market the applications and products that end users need to stay in touch with their friends, family, colleagues
and customers.

As communications and computing are quickly coming
together, we are seeing new technologies being invented, new business models forming
and new partnerships being created.  Ribbit and BT intend that, through Ribbit's developer community, they will enable the dvelopment of improved voice services.

The Ribbit platform is designed to give developers,
integrators and product innovators the opportunity to ride on our
platform and leverage its APIs to create new communication solutions
for private businesses, global enterprises, vertical markets and the
masses.

The platform enables developers to bring
together the richness of voice calling and Web 2.0 experiences. With
Ribbit, voice can become a rich feature that can be added to any
application, on any device. Free from a traditional handset or the
latest mobile phone, voice can now be delivered and received on
multiple devices in multiple locations, across any network. It can be
integrated, monetized and personalized using the Ribbit platform.



Inevitably, Ribbit will be seen in the contect of Google's Android and Apple'siPhone. For some the former is merely a cloak for increasing Google's Advertisement sales, while the latter is tied to the Apple iPhone platform.  Although this is an open platform technology, BT's challenge will be to see if it can escape being associated purely with BT's own services. 

KPN deploys Amdocs OSS to speed broadband roll outs

St Louis,
USA - KPN, the largest
service provider in the Netherlands, has deployed Amdocs Operations Support
Systems (OSS) to accelerate the fulfilment of its broadband services.




KPN has already deployed several
products from the Amdocs Cramer OSS Suite. To accelerate the roll out of its
residential broadband services, KPN has deployed Amdocs Automation and
Activation Packs. These packs have enabled KPN to productise the business
processes associated with the broadband component of its triple-play roll out, decreasing time to market for deploying new broadband elements and reducing on-going
operational costs.



KPN
can now automate the service fulfilment process which will be used to deliver
the large number of broadband orders it receives every hour. In addition, the packs support specific network devices such as IP DSLAMs (Internet Protocol
Digital
Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) to deliver faster broadband
connections to customers.



“KPN
understands the need to further simplify and consolidate fulfilment and service
processes. To achieve this, we needed a single centralised architecture and
Amdocs OSS fulfilment solutions play an important role in the roadmap towards
that simplified and consolidated architecture,” said John Quist,
vice president of All-IP at KPN. “Amdocs pre-integrated solution for broadband
fulfilment offers a great advantage for faster and more accurate service
deployment, and the Broadband Automation Pack provided more than 85% of
the required broadband process functionality out of the box.”



Said
Charles Born, vice president of
corporate communications for Amdocs: “As service providers build and deploy new
next generation networks, they need integrated OSS that can automate processes that span the
customer order through to activation on the network. This automation reduces
the long-term cost of ownership of the OSS and helps deliver a high-quality customer
experience.”

OSS contract to extend Clarity's support for NGN services by PT Telkom

Clarity has won a third contract with Indonesia’s Tier 1 incumbent
telecoms service provider, PT Telkomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom). Clarity
currently provides PT Telkom with a single strategic OSS platform used for
inventory, provisioning and assurance of all its networks and services, based on
a hybrid of next generation networks (NGN), IP/ MPLS and legacy
technologies.

The new contract
will see Clarity’s solution
supporting PT Telkom’s Metro-Ethernet services that are currently being rolled
out within its heterogeneous NGN network. The system will be integrated
with other equipment providers involved in the project, including Cisco,
Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, Tellabs and Huawei.

Clarity’s
Metro-Ethernet solution will offer complete lifecycle management for delivery
and support of next-generation applications and services such as IPTV, Video on
Demand, Voice over IP, storage extension and disaster recovery. It will also
enable a higher level of customer service while controlling operational
expenditures as demand increases.

Indra Utoyo, director of Information Technology at PT Telkom Indonesia, commented:
“Clarity’s solution was
chosen as it was superior to anything else on the market. It supports Quality of
Service provisioning for triple play (voice, video and data) services that will
run over a converged network. In addition, any network event or fault can be
quickly identified, assessed immediately and resolved promptly before any of our
customer’s Service Level Agreements are impacted. We see this as essential in
being able to offer our customers the best possible experience and in supporting
our uninterrupted subscriber connectivity. It is a very flexible solution that
also offers scalability.”

Raj
Thangiah, vice president of Sales and Marketing at Clarity, added “Service Level
Agreements are the cornerstone of differentiating carriers’ service offerings. A
Unified OSS solution allows for a powerful link to be created between the network, the service and the end users, and it returns strong business benefits
in terms of simple integration, cost savings and improved customer experience.
With deep visibility across the network and powerful management tools, Clarity’s
Metro-Ethernet solution enables service providers to guarantee superior
performance and prepares them for future network
developments.”

Clarity is the
first Next Generation OSS to be deployed end-to-end, across all lines of
business, by leading Tier 1 service providers. Clarity’s installed base includes
such operators as Hutchison, Telekom Malaysia, as well as India’s
giant Reliance Communications.

Comptel delivers Axiom broadband licenses in India

OSS vendor, Comptel has
signed an agreement to deliver and maintain the AXIOSS suite for
broadband services at a leading telecom operator in India.



Comptel announced in April that it was strengthening its position in broadband and IP fulfilment by acquiring Axiom Systems, developers of the AXIOSS product suite. (For more details see our April report: http://www.vanillaplus.com/news/view/23 )



The
total value of the agreement is put at US$4.0 million. Comptel estimates that US$2.2
million of this will be recognised as revenue during 2008.

“This is a major
broadband service fulfilment delivery for us,
following our recent acquisition of Axiom Systems. The deal further strengthens
our established position in the fast growing Indian telecom market”, said
Sami Erviö, president and CEO of Comptel.

Nigel Pink to manage Ipanema in UK and Ireland

London, UK.
September 8, 2008  — Ipanema
Technologies, a leader in application traffic management systems for wide area
networks, today announced that Nigel Pink has been appointed vice president and
general manager for the UK and Ireland (UKI).



Pink
has extensive experience both in the UK & Ireland and internationally, including most of
the 27 European Union countries, as well as the Middle East, Africa, China and the United States. Recent
roles have included key positions at Cisco Systems, SAP and Interel PR and
PA Consulting. Pink led the creation of Cisco’s Europe Middle East & Africa
(EMEA) business with IBM, which grew to become a multi-billion dollar business. At SAP, he drove its public sector business in
EMEA’s non-German speaking countries. At Interel, his practice provided sales
management consulting for leading organisations including Oracle Corporation,
Unisys and SUN Micro Systems.



Reza Madhavi, president of Ipanema Technologies,
said: “The UK & Ireland market is an exciting and increasingly important one for
Ipanema.  We are ramping up to meet
strong demand for our offerings. Nigel’s appointment is central to our
growth here. He brings the right mix of leadership skills, high-tech experience and
knowledge of global markets through key prior management roles.”



Enterprises
are increasingly
demanding their service providers deliver value added network services versus
pure bandwidth services. Ipanema Technologies in partnership with BT, Cable
& Wireless, Orange Business Services, TATA Communications and VANCO, part
of the Reliance Telecom Group, is the first in the UK & Ireland to offer turnkey
managed services that address the strategic requirements of global network
management and optimisation.



Complementing the value added network services
approach, Ipanema sells directly to enterprises, partnering with systems
integrator such as Telindus. According to Pink, “Performance of
business critical applications across the network is essential to every
organisations' success. Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System ensures
applications such as point of sales and supply change management perform at all
times. In doing so, Ipanema provides detailed insight to manage valuable
network infrastructure and resources.”

Smart move for i-conX in Ireland

After a successful
audit of Smart Telecom’s current billing structure, i-conX Solutions has been
appointed by the Irish telecoms operator to provide ongoing outsourced interconnect
billing services.

 

In a two-year
deal, i-conX will use its own proprietary hardware and software to manage the
costs of Smart’s incoming and outgoing voice and data traffic. The contract was
awarded upon completion of a back-billing and cost control exercise in which
i-conX demonstrated how new measures implemented across the company’s
corporate, residential and payphone services could assist Smart in assuring
that billing relationships with other carriers are both accurate and auditable .

 

Over recent months
Smart Telecom has undergone a management restructure and has driven operational
and cost efficiencies throughout the organisation. “With robust financial
management one of the key priorities for the new management team, the deal with
i-conX is an important investment and links in with other controls and
automation that we now have in place,” says Pio Murtagh, chief operations
officer for Smart Telecom.

 

“The back billing
exercise and new interconnect billing functionality introduced by i-conX provides
Smart with valuable commercial visibility and a platform from which to
carefully assess our financial position at any one time. Alongside recent
significant investments in system automation and process control, the new deal will allow us to continue with our plans
for further growth over the next few years.”

 

i-conX Solutions' annual turnover now stands at
€2.2million. Alongside extensive reach in Europe and the Middle East, the
business continues to win contracts in emerging markets, and is currently
working on site in Sudan and
Palestine
implementing both its outsourced and licensed services.

 

Of the company’s
new deal with Smart Telecom, CEO at i-conX, Martin Browne commented: “Our new
deal with Smart has proven to be mutually beneficial; its new management team
has introduced fantastic new technology, so not only is it great for us to have
the opportunity to link in our proprietary hardware and software, but we have
also moved our own operations over to Smart’s network to take advantage of its
cutting-edge network.”

 

Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software simplifies customer communications

Windsor, UK. September 17, 2008 – Pitney Bowes Group
1 Software has unveiled EngageOne™ Interactive Communications, a system that expands the capabilities of the company’s Customer Communications
Management (CCM) suite. EngageOne Interactive reportedly enables business users to easily
create, deliver, and manage real-time personalised, interactive customer
communications, such as correspondence, new business applications and negotiated
documents, across the enterprise.

EngageOne Interactive
offers an efficient means to replace costly and hard to maintain
legacy correspondence applications. Business users gain complete control of
content and design of interactive documents, creating pre-defined templates.
Template management, version control and workflow approval, along with metrics
and analytics, ensure the quality of every document before it is delivered to
the customer. Front office users can quickly and easily find the right template
and tailor the communication to the specific needs of the customer interaction.
 

EngageOne Interactive
is the first offering from Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software’s new EngageOne
service-oriented architecture (SOA) framework. The ystem is engineered to
ease deployment and integration with a variety of business applications,
including Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software’s data capture, data cleansing, mail
efficiency, document composition, document archive and content management
services for a true end-to-end content solution.

“Today’s enterprises
require faster, more intelligent personal interaction that enables them to
differentiate the customer experience, improve customer loyalty and increase
market share,” said Lawrence O’Hagan, chief technology officer, Pitney Bowes Group 1
Software. “EngageOne Interactive ensures a highly
productive, accurate, personal interaction each and every time. With the ability
to more quickly respond to market, competitive or customer conditions,
organisations can ensure that customer communications help build the brand and
drive additional revenues.”

EngageOne Interactive
enables organisations to:

• Easily create communications in-context – Through its web-based WYSIWYG (what
  you see is what you get) document editor, front-office users can easily create
  and manipulate communications in-context of the document itself, and present the
  document exactly as it will be printed.  
  


• Improve business process automation
  – With
  built-in document management, workflow, web services and optional archive for
  easy integration in existing systems, interactive documents can be shared and
  accessed across the enterprise.
  


• Reduce costs – By relying on a
  combination of functions that reduce preparation time, organisations can
  accurately respond to more customer inquiries in a shorter time frame, and
  reduce production printing and mailing costs.   

EngageOne Interactive will be
available in mid-November 2008.

Comptel extends its Latin America footprint

Helsinki, Finland. October 23, 2008 -- Comptel Corporation has now established representations in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, Argentina to support the
growing Latin American market. These representations complement Comptel’s main office in the region in Sao Paulo (Brazil),
which has been the bridgehead for Comptel since 2002, and has been central to the
company’s success in the region. 

Comptel, a leading vendor of dynamic operations support system (OSS) software, has achieved considerable success across Latin
America in recent years. It
now has over ten customers in the region, including major
communications service providers in Mexico,
Argentina, Brazil, Peru,
Venezuela and Ecuador.
Comptel also sees tremendous
potential in extending existing strong partnerships with global system
integrators as well as creating new alliances with local partners as key
drivers for growth in the region.

“As adoption rates for new telecom,
mobile and broadband technologies increase, Latin American communications
service providers face a lot of challenges, but they also have a tremendous
opportunity,” said Mr Alexandre Troise, VP Latin America at Comptel.



“As an international company that
has worked with over 280 customers worldwide, Comptel
has specific experience in helping service providers optimise their OSS and increase
revenues from new advanced wireless services leveraged by the introduction of
3G and WiMax, as well as those generated by new content-driven technologies
like IPTV, mobile TV and VoIP. The growing adoption of IP in the region,
especially in corporate segments, will also bring new challenges to operators
making a dynamic OSS layer essential to help them improving time to market,” Troise concluded.

Scorecard adds third European customer for subscriber, service analysis

TORONTO, CANADA. October 16, 2008 – Scorecard Systems, Inc has been selected by UK operator Kingston Communications
to provide the broadband and telecoms provider with a more robust
and rich subscriber and service analysis capability from its traditional fixed line
operations to complicated hosted and
multi-site networking services.

A leader in reporting and analysis solutions for cable, broadband and telecommunications companies, Scorecard’s systems are designed to drive deeper, more accurate
analysis of customer activity and reduce commission and acquisition costs, and put
greater analytical ability directly in the hands of end users.

Kingston Communications is the third European operator to
partner with Scorecard Systems. The company’s subscriber and service analysis system has been deployed at dozens
of carriers and currently measures results for over 100 million subscribers.

Scorecard Systems’ Subscriber Analysis application will provide
KC with increased visibility into customer and service activity, particularly
surrounding upgrade/downgrade paths between various products and bundle
packages, and will ensure “one version of the truth” for reporting throughout
the organisation. The solution will supplement KC’s existing Data Warehouse,
allowing the company to measure customer activity, trends and behaviours using
a table-based, user-configurable business rules approach that leverages
subscriber industry standards customised to its specific needs. The approach enables KC to avoid
“hard-coding,” business rules typical to home-built subscriber analysis
systems. The rules are applied
automatically at the subscriber/service/billing code level, with the results made
available to any number of query, reporting, OLAP or other tools.

“The Subscriber Analysis Application will allow us to integrate
all of our voice, data, mobile and hosting business rules into one application
with the ability to quickly drill down to customer detail a critical advantage
in our competitive marketplace,” said Ben Wrigley, business intelligence manager of Kingston Communications. “The solution will enable us to quickly
evaluate the success of campaigns and new product launches, and ensure all of
our users have one, auditable, accurate source of data for customer activity,
without having to build such a solution in-house.”



“The Scorecard solution allows
companies to rapidly respond to market conditions, determine any challenges
with their business model and maintain low churn rates at both a subscriber and
value added service level,” said Simon Marwood, Scorecard's CEO. “Kingston
Communications has the scale and resilience of a large network operator and the
flexibility and market knowledge of a specialist solutions provider, a valuable
combination in today’s climate.”

Tunisie Telecom selects BSCS iX 2 as its billing platform

Frankfurt/Main, Germany. October 27, 2008 - LHS, a leading provider of telecom billing
and customer care systems across the wireless, wireline, and IP telecom markets
worldwide, today announced that Tunisie Telecom has selected BSCS iX Release 2
as its new pre- & post-paid billing platform for all telecommunication services
offered to its customers (including fixed, mobile, and internet services).



The
new project will include the iX Collections module for the improvement of
revenue collection and for leakage prevention, as well as the LHS bill
presentment solution, which enables customer-oriented billing coupled with
flexible layout design and formatting.



"This project gives us the
opportunity to put all key internal stakeholders together, while the
company-wide business transformation enables us to deliver excellent services in
a more efficient way," said Ms Rula Ammuri, director of Information Technology
at parent company, EITL and CIO at Tunisie Telecom.



"Another key aspect of
this project is the unified customer care. Replacing and unifying several
existing applications will allow us to offer better and more services to Tunisie
Telecom customers. The positive implementation results at 'du' in the UAE,
another EITL company, convinced us that BSCS iX Release 2 is excellently suited
to the future offerings of Tunisie Telecom," she added.



The project has
already been launched and involves Tunisie Telecom staff, local companies, and
Capgemini as the main system integrator.



"We are delighted with this renewed trust
towards our company, technology and products by our long term partner Tunisie
Telecom, and we will offer all our support to the successful rollout of BSCS iX
Release 2," said Parvaiz Ahsan, managing director MEA-APAC at LHS. "Our powerful
solution based on BSCS is deployed across North Africa, and this new win will
reinforce our position as the number one customer care and billing solution
provider in the region," he added.

Cellcom Israel upgrades to ECtel's new revenue assurance platform

Rosh
Ha'ayin, Israel. 28 October,
2008. ECtel Ltd, a  leading provider of Integrated Revenue
Management™ (IRM™) solutions for communications service providers, announced
today that Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL), Israel’s largest cellular operator,
has chosen to upgrade its revenue assurance system to ECtel’s new integrated revenue
assurance platform (RAP).



The order strengthens
the companies’ long-standing relationship as Cellcom Israel
has consistently chosen ECtel over the years. “As
Israel’s largest cellular operator, with over three million subscribers, it is
essential to keep updating an effective revenue assurance solution as well as an
all-around answer to the increased threat of revenue leakages”, said Erez
Shalom, the Research and BI department manager of Cellcom Israel.



“After the substantial success of the
previous RAP platform in combating revenue leakages, we are anticipating the
installation of the newer and even more advanced platform in the coming
weeks.”



RAP,
ECtel’s automated and configurable revenue assurance platform, facilitates
cost-effective RA processes and reportedly provides operators with rapid resolution of
critical revenue leakages in wireline, wireless, convergent and next-generation
networks. RAP is the market’s most flexible
revenue assurance offering, enabling both immediate deployment and gradual
expansion over time. The automated system allows non-technical business users to
easily build, revise and add controls and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Through its top-down viewing approach, RAP enables users to rapidly
locate risk points, validate RA processes, prioritise repair actions and fix
leakages.



“The fact that Cellcom
Israel chose to upgrade its existing RAP product framework of ECtel solutions
with RAP version 5 demonstrates the competitive advantage and tangible benefits
that ECtel’s integrated solutions provide,” said Mr Itzik Weinstein, president
and CEO of ECtel. “Our products continue to provide Cellcom Israel and many
other leading operators worldwide with top-of-the-line solutions necessary to
efficiently and competitively run businesses in today’s market
environment.”

Amdocs to acquire ChangingWorlds for US$60m

November 6, 2008. Amdocs (NYSE: DOX), provider of customer experience systems, has announced that yesterday it signed a
definitive agreement to acquire Changing Worlds Ltd, a
privately-held provider of personalisation and intelligent portal solutions for
mobile service providers. Amdocs has also agreed
to acquire all of ChangingWorlds’ shares for US$60 million in cash, net of cash on
hand, subject to post-closing adjustments.



Additional consideration may be paid
later based on the achievement of certain performance metrics. The acquisition
is subject to conditions, and is expected to close by December 31, 2008.



ChangingWorlds’ technology,
combined with the Amdocs CES portfolio, will enable better customer experiences
by allowing end users to quickly get relevant information based on what they use
most, making it easier to navigate the internet on their phones and reducing the
time they spend looking for content. ChangingWorlds’ technology currently
addresses mobile devices, and Amdocs intends to expand the technology to three
screens (mobile, PC and television) to personalise the customer experience
across all touch points. ChangingWorlds and Amdocs share several customers
including Sprint, the Vodafone Group and Telefonica O2.



“Sprint is committed to
delivering the best possible customer experience across a wide range of data
services, including internet browsing,” said Kevin Packingham, senior vice
president of product and technology development for Sprint. “Sprint and Amdocs
have worked together for years on a number of important projects designed to
enhance the customer experience. ChangingWorlds has been integral to our Sprint
Web offering and provides the technology and expertise that will help us
continue to deliver enhanced and personalised internet services.”



“Personalisation is a
cornerstone of Amdocs’ strategy to offer customer experience systems, and
ChangingWorlds is a recognised global expert in this area,” said Dov
Baharav, chief executive officer of Amdocs Management Ltd.  “ChangingWorlds’ dynamic portal offerings surpass the traditional ‘one-
size-fits- all’ approach, and no single vendor can match its range and
sophistication of personalisation services.”



ChangingWorlds’
patented technology automatically builds subscriber profiles based on user
behaviour and usage patterns that require no user input or action to make finding
relevant content faster and involving fewer clicks. For example, a sports
enthusiast will see the link to latest information about his or her favourite football
team on their home page, while a classical music fan will see the link to the
upcoming concerts in their area.



“Amdocs and
ChangingWorlds recognise the power of the customer experience and the potential
for service providers to further exploit their place in the digital value
chain,” said David Moran, chief executive officer of ChangingWorlds. “Both
Amdocs and ChangingWorlds will continue to aggressively execute on the shared
vision of enabling service providers to offer the most compelling customer
experience, to grow revenue from data services and retain customers.”

The impact of the
acquisition on Amdocs’ non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be neutral in
fiscal 2009. The impact on GAAP results will be finalised after Amdocs
completes the purchase price accounting for the acquisition. Amdocs may incur a
one-time, acquisition-related expense in the quarter to December 31, 2008 to
account for certain costs related to the acquisition.

FireSky to improve relationships with gamers

Cincinnati and Phoenix, USA. 6 November, 2008
-- FireSky, a new video game publisher
dedicated to improving how gamers play together online, has signed a
contract for Convergys’ relationship management solutions.



Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) will
provide online gaming consumers of the soon-to-be-released Stargate Worlds
massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with state-of-the-art
inbound customer support services. Convergys’ dedicated contact centre
agents will initially provide customer support to English, French, and
German-speaking customers for general game playing questions as well as
technical, account management, or subscription-related questions.




Stargate Worlds is based on
a popular Stargate television series from MGM.  Players who step through the
gate will:

* Feel the Heat – Master the battlefield using
modern tactics and firepower

* Travel Instantly – Dial up the
Stargate to explore dozens of worlds from ancient civilisations to high-tech
planets        

* Team Up – Battle devious and powerful enemies
with your friends

* Find the New You – Pick from seven
archetypes with unique skills and styles

* Don’t Fight
It – Simulate translation, repair, and sabotage with minigames as your buddies
battle it out

* Advance With the Story – New
missions, weapons, and loot delivered regularly



“In the online game space, customer service is vital," said
Wendy Dickerman, director of Customer Care, FireSky.  "As a new company, FireSky
has found that it makes sense to partner with experienced, proven firms to
provide solutions for distribution and other key business aspects. We intend to
raise the bar in the MMORPG space with a higher calibre of customer service.
Convergys is going to help us get there."



“The online gaming industry continues to grow at a rapid
pace, and a key goal for the industry is to provide consumers with a superior
online gaming experience. Convergys solutions will help FireSky drive more
value from their online customer interactions, giving FireSky a clear,
competitive differentiation in this growing marketplace,” said Jim Boyce,
Convergys president, North America. “Convergys understood FireSky’s business
model and performance challenges and partnered with them to develop a win-win
technology support program for the Stargate Worlds community.”




Convergys provides
comprehensive, outsourced, business and consumer support functions, as well as
services for in-house contact centre operations. Everyday, we handle millions
of customer service interactions such as account service, billing inquiries,
technical support, and service dispatch, enhancing the customer’s experience and
driving more value from the relationship our clients have with their customers.
Convergys’ global delivery model enables us to provide support - on-shore,
offshore, or near-shore, whether in a contact centre or through our home agent
model. We provide our clients with state-of-the-art infrastructure and
self-care automation technology to not only increase customer satisfaction but
also reduce costs.

JDSU acquires Circadiant to meet growing need for SFP+ and 10 GigE stress testing

Milpitas, California, USA. 18 November, 2008 – JDSU, one of the
leading providers of test solutions for the research and development (R&D), system
verification testing and production needs of carrier labs, network equipment
manufacturers and their supply chains, today announced it has acquired
Circadiant, a leading company in SFP+, 10 GigE and other stressed
signal test solutions.  

Circadiant expands JDSU’s product
portfolio for the lab and production test market by capitalising on a number of
key assets, including Circadiant’s successful Hydra and OST product platforms,
established test expertise and close customer relationships with leading network
equipment manufacturers, optical module vendors and semiconductor companies. Circadiant, in turn, will benefit from JDSU’s extensive optical transport
product development capabilities and global distribution channels.

The SFP+ transceiver is specified by a multi-source agreement between manufacturers and allows greater port density (the number of
transceivers per inch along the edge of a mother board) than other transceiver
configurations. SFP+ is emerging as the 10 GigE optical interface of choice
because it enables lower cost and even higher port density network interface
cards. To achieve this, developers and manufactures are faced with new
compliance and performance test challenges that are addressed by Circadiant’s
products and systems. 

 “To capitalise on the economic benefits of developing SFP+
modules, equipment manufacturers require test solutions that evolve
accordingly,” said Bill Mortimer, vice president and general manager in JDSU’s
Communications Test and Measurement business segment. “Circadiant has
technology and products that not only meet this challenge but complement the
JDSU optical transport test portfolio and offer important test capabilities our
customers are asking for.”

Circadiant standards-based test solutions include the Hydra
platform, the industry’s first 10 GigE Long Reach Multimode and 10 GigE
SFP+ test systems, and the OST platform for testing optical components, modules
and systems using real world conditions.

“Testing 10GigE components and systems requires the
verification of standards compliance for product development, but also
simplified, lower cost test solutions for manufacturing,” said My Chung, CEO of
Circadiant. “Providing industry-first test solutions that help meet new and
complex challenges associated with SFP+ while also accelerating time-to-market
is the differentiator for Circadiant products. We will expand these
capabilities as part of JDSU.”