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
Fraud & Revenue Management
'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.”
Amdocs and ECtel launch joint fraud detection and prevention offering
ECtel Ltd, a provider of Integrated Revenue Management™
(IRM™) solutions, has joined forces with Amdocs, a provider of customer experience systems, to deliver a state of
the art fraud detection and prevention system, based on ECtel's fraud prevention product -- FraudView®, and
Amdocs' system integration services.
Communication service
providers continue to be challenged by growing fraud, resulting in revenue loss (see in-depth Fraud Report in VanillaPlus Magazine's June issue).
In addition, fraudulent activities can lead to increased churn as customers seek
providers that can deliver a flawless service experience.
Designed to meet the
needs of wireline, wireless, convergent and next generation service providers,
FraudView is the market’s leading and most comprehensive fraud management
solution. FraudView goes beyond traffic and usage monitoring, allowing advanced
detection of fraudulent activity as part of customer acquisition, credit risk
management and new subscriber evaluation processes.
The Amdocs-ECtel
offering incorporates ECtel’s FraudView and I-Probe™ technology. FraudView
provides comprehensive fraud detection capabilities such as a sophisticated
real-time fraud rules engine, advanced score cards, velocity and collision
engine, subscriber profiling and evaluating capabilities, advanced neural models
and credit limit monitoring. When integrated with I-Probe, FraudView allows
operators to enjoy unbiased and independent probe-based CDR coverage and
real-time collection, with optional call blocking and in-band analysis. This
provides customers with superior capabilities for real-time monitoring and
preventing fraud.
"The joint offering
from Amdocs and ECtel combines ECtel’s state of the art products with Amdocs’
unrivalled delivery track record and deep knowledge of the service provider’s
operational systems environment and business processes,” said Itzik Weinstein, president and CEO of
ECtel. “This combination creates one of the leading fraud solutions available
for service providers today, providing the best software out there while
ensuring it can be deployed at low risk and cost-efficiently.”
Legacy systems pose major barrier for mobile operators, says Pontis survey
A new survey carried out among marketing managers at mobile operators
highlights the problems marketers face in accessing and leveraging customer
data, particularly real time usage data, to create and deliver compelling
marketing offers and promotions. The survey commissioned by Pontis, experts in
targeted marketing for communication service providers discovered that
47% of
respondents judged technological challenges in accessing data held on different
and non-interoperable platforms to be the biggest barrier to delivering
personalised communications, with organisational structure and processes in
second place with 29% and just 9% of respondents highlighting lack of resources
as the issue.
The survey
reveals that the majority of marketers believe personalisation and price are the
key ingredients for a successful marketing promotion. 34% of all respondents
consider personalisation to be the most important aspect of developing a
successful marketing offer or promotion with pricing in second place at 23%
followed by communication and then timing with 21% and 17%
respectively.
The survey
reveals the difficulty marketing staff are facing in creating such personalised
communications due to the problems in accessing subscriber’s usage history, real
time behaviour and response to previous offers -- just 18% consider this to be
easy while 82% find it problematic. This poses a particular difficulty in
marketing bundled services like triple- and quad-play offerings where 44% of
respondents consider it extremely difficult to get access to the relevant
customer data.
According to Guy
Talmi, marketing director at Pontis, “The survey graphically highlights what our
customers have been telling us for some time about the difficulties they
encounter in accessing customer data and usage history to help them deliver well
targeted marketing offers.”
He adds, “It’s hardly surprising that marketers
have struggled to market new mobile services effectively in the absence of such
vital data. The good news, of course, is that there are now solutions available
like our own, which automate this process and help marketers to determine the
optimal proposition, price, communication’s channel and timing to give the
maximum chance of success and help to overcome the technological and
organisational barriers that have traditionally hampered the marketing of mobile
services.”
Openet continues expansion with new office in Malaysia
Dublin, Ireland – Openet, a provider of transactional intelligence systems for service
providers, has opened a new Malaysia office in Kuala
Lumpur. With demand growing across the Asia Pacific region, this expansion enhances Openet’s global presence and its ability to deliver
innovative products and services to telecommunications and cable providers
worldwide. This announcement comes on the heels of Openet’s announcement of a
new office in Brazil.
Kuala
Lumpur was chosen because it delivered the largest pool
of qualified talent. Since recruitment began for the facility in February,
Openet has hired 15 experienced professional services engineers to support the company’s expanding operations. With an anticipated 10 - 15 new hires in
product development and 20 to 30 additional professional services staff, the
Malaysia office is now a significant
development and support centre for the company.
“With worldwide
recognition for our transactional intelligence solutions, growing our support
staff has become vital to providing our customers with the products and services
the market demands,” said Cyril Dolan, VP of professional services,
EMEA/APAC, Openet. “Asia is a hot
spot for telecommunications innovation. The new Malaysia office is poised to support
the growth already happening in the region and worldwide, and will fuel the
development of new innovative technologies.”
With support personnel in North
America, Ireland and now
Malaysia, Openet can provide
around-the-clock service and support to its worldwide customer base. As the
market for network-edge solutions in Asia expands exponentially and continues to
show immense growth potential.
EXCLUSIVE: WeDo CEO tells VanillaPlus of next round of M&As
London, UK. September 12, 2008: Talking exclusively to VanillaPlus today, Rui Paiva, CEO of WeDo technologies, the Portugal-based business process control company disclosed that WeDo has begun the second round of its international acquisition strategy.
WeDo has five regional divisions each with its
own sales and delivery team, plus a central software development division, and a
business consulting division – following its acquisition of the UK company Praesidium last year. WeDo
also acquired two other companies in 2007, Cape
Technologies in Ireland and Tecnológica in Brazil.
Said Paiva: "Now we
are starting the second wave of acquisitions, approaching five key companies
worldwide to ask if they are open to discussions with us. Asia and North America are particularly important to us now, so
there are two targets in each. I hope you will see something happen next year."
Full report in VanillaPlus Directory 2009 (out soon).
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.”
New roaming hub system launched by Syniverse
TAMPA, FLA, USA. 15 October 2008 -- Syniverse Technologies has launched a roaming hub to help mobile operators solve the
business and technical complexities of wireless roaming. Enabling operators to
quickly deliver ubiquitous voice and data services wherever their subscribers
may roam, the Syniverse Roaming Hub features a comprehensive suite of roaming
services, including data clearing, financial clearing and award-winning fraud
protection.
"Our more than 20 years of global interoperability experience clearly
shows that Syniverse is well positioned to cater to the diverse roaming needs
of operators around the world," said Tony Holcombe, president and CEO,
Syniverse. "Moreover, through strategic partnerships with established players
in the market, the Syniverse Roaming Hub will expand on our ability to provide
seamless connectivity and a full range of roaming services to the wireless
marketplace."
Holcombe said the Syniverse Roaming Hub, which is designed to replace
today's inefficient bilateral agreement business model, will provide mobile
operators with a means to economically expand their roaming footprint, quickly
launch new services and cost effectively manage roaming partner relationships.
Some of the hub components include Syniverse Data Clearing House (DCH),
Financial Clearing House (FCH), signalling, agreement management, RAEX,
operational support services and the company's award-winning Syniverse DataNet
NRTRDE system.
Through its
active participation in the GSMA, Syniverse is defining many of the technical specifications
for roaming hubbing. As a result, the Syniverse Roaming Hub is fully compliant
with GSMA specifications.
Also, during a recent GSMA trial, Syniverse demonstrated the strength of its
roaming hub by successfully testing three of the four technical architectures
defined by the GSMA -- the most of any participant. During the trials, Syniverse
worked with the largest pool of operators, which included six operators in four
countries and three continents. This interaction helped ensure Syniverse's
roaming hub would be effective on a global scale.
Additionally, Holcombe said Syniverse Roaming Hub services are able to be
implemented in a number of leading-edge approaches as the company develops
different types of relationships with operators and service providers around
the globe. Not only will Syniverse offer its roaming hub solution to individual
operators, the company also will provide services to operators who choose to
implement their own hub solutions for their affiliates. Moreover, Syniverse, in
its mission to provide seamless mobile interoperability anywhere in the world,
will form alliances with other hub providers to expand those providers'
technical capabilities and global reach.
"Although Syniverse already has a significant global presence, we plan
to continue strengthening our hub connections by engaging a number of partners,
making our hubbing capabilities even more robust," Holcombe said.
Comfone and Infobrain establish independent, Swiss-based clearing unit
Bern,
Switzerland. 30 October, 2008 –
Comfone, the Swiss-based roaming specialist and a provider of roaming services to
more than 300 mobile operators around the world, and Infobrain, a global market
leader in providing systems for GSM/3G roaming and TAP3 data management, today
announced the establishment of an independent clearing unit. The new unit
provides data and financial clearing services for mobile operators and is based
on state-of-the-art data and financial clearing systems, NRTRDE, RAEX and fraud prevention systems.
The announcement
is part of Comfone’s strategic initiative to become the telecoms
industry’s leading, independent hub provider of integrated solutions for mobile
operators. With over 10 years of experience in roaming services provision,
Comfone offers a wide range of in-house services, including signalling,
financial clearing, hubbing, WLAN roaming, convergence and data services. Until
today, Comfone relied on existing data clearing platforms to support the
provision of its data clearing service (also see Roaming article in VanillaPlus December 2008 issue, out Dec 8). Now, with the setting up of the new
Data and Financial Clearing Unit, Comfone completes its portfolio of in-house
services and secures its position as a fully independent roaming, inter-carrier
and hub services provider.
The new Clearing
Unit, provided in partnership by Comfone and Zürich-based company, Infobrain,
is said to ensure premium quality functionality, "Swiss precision" in data handling and
exceptional customer care. By combining Infobrain’s and Comfone’s expertise in
the data and financial clearing business, the aim is that customers will profit from a concentration
of clearing proficiency in Switzerland.
The new Clearing Unit will be fully operational by the end of 2008 and is to
provide data clearing, financial clearing, NRTRDE, fraud prevention and RAEX services. All industry standards will be supported.
Mathias Prüssing,
CEO Comfone, said: “I am convinced that the launch of our independent Clearing
Unit offers mobile operators a concrete alternative in a consolidated market.
Together with Infobrain, we are committed to providing dedicated services
supporting the data exchange between mobile operators with the Swiss quality
our customers demand.”
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.