ACE*COMM Corporation (NASDAQ:ACEC), a provider of advanced OSS, value-added services, and network business intelligence solutions, today announced it has signed its first customer in North America for the deployment of its industry-leading Parent Patrol(TM) wireless access control application. The customer, an undisclosed Tier One North American service provider, is expected to commence rollout for the new service in one of its regional divisions in the third quarter of 2006.
“Selling dynamic, value-added service applications like Parent Patrol(TM) into the Tier-1 customer space is a breakthrough achievement for ACE*COMM and a positive indicator of the market potential for this class of product,” said George Jimenez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ACE*COMM.
Parent Patrol(TM) gives parents the ability to supervise their children’s use of mobile phones. Parents use an intuitive web-based interface to the service provider’s network, through which they set allowance limits on parameters such as time of day, numbers called or received, minutes used, and services accessed.
“Over many months, this service provider conducted extensive lab trials and focus group studies – involving parents and children – to ascertain market demand for the service prior to going ahead with the project. We were selected for this deployment not only because we have the best solution on the market, but because we were able to promise a rapid roll out in support of our customer’s time-to-market demands. Our optimism for building a substantial business from a suite of applications like Parent Patrol(TM) is further supported by our ongoing level of discussions and growing pipeline that includes a broad spectrum of other North American and European mobile service providers.”
Mr. Jimenez also said, “Industry research indicates that youth mobile adoption trends are moving toward ever younger segments of the population. This indicates a growing market opportunity for parental control services. Globally, questions are being raised about the appropriateness of providing unsupervised mobile access to younger and younger children. We believe the demand for flexible controls will ultimately be driven by parents’ desire for some measure of responsible supervision and security as their children inevitably become heavier users of mobile phone and data services. Our new customer is a forward-thinking service provider that seeks to provide some balance for the burgeoning mobile youth phenomenon by offering a responsible solution to parents who want their kids to have mobile phones for reasons of security and convenience, but would like to find an accessible and adjustable way to monitor and regulate how they are used.”
About Parent Patrol(TM)
ACE*COMM offers Parent Patrol(TM) to mobile service providers as a solution for parents who would like to provide their children with mobile services but are concerned about its use. Parent Patrol(TM) is more flexible and more effective than simply relying on prepaid minutes of use or similar time-limiting schemes. Such plans only limit how much time a child can spend on the phone, not when they can use it, or who they can talk to. Parent Patrol(TM) allows parents, rather than the mobile carrier, to selectively determine the rules and restrictions that apply to each child’s phone.
Parent Patrol(TM) is handset independent and makes it easy for parents to set reasonable limits on their kids’ mobile phone usage – they can set stronger limits for younger kids, and allow older teenagers more freedom. Limits are easy to modify, so parents can change the rules according to needs and circumstances. Parent Patrol(TM) also features content filtering (e.g. for porn and other offensive materials) capabilities. For more information visit: www.parent-patrol.com. ACE*COMM has previously released the results of a proprietary survey that indicated 71% of North American teenagers have unrestricted use of their mobile phones. The online survey, conducted for ACE*COMM by Itracks, polled 1000 teens across North America between the ages of 13 and 18 to ascertain usage patterns. The Itracks survey also found that many teenagers are abusing their mobile phone privileges.
About ACE*COMM
ACE*COMM is a global provider of network business intelligence and advanced operations support systems (OSS) solutions for telecom service providers and enterprises. ACE*COMM’s solutions are applicable to a range of legacy through next-generation networks that include wired, wireless, voice, data, multimedia, and Internet communications networks. These solutions provide the analytical tools required to extract knowledge from operating networks – knowledge customers use for asset recovery and revenue assurance, cost reduction, improved operational efficiency, acceleration of time-to-market for new services, and more effective customer care.
For over 20 years, ACE*COMM technology has been effectively deployed for more than 300 customers, spanning over 4000 installations in 70 countries worldwide. ACE*COMM-installed products are currently enabling the success of customers and partners such as Alcatel, AT&T, Cisco, General Dynamics, IBM, Level 3 Communications, Marconi, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, Siemens, and Unisys. Headquartered in the Washington, DC area, ACE*COMM has corporate offices in Australia, Canada, China, and the UK. ACE*COMM is a registered ISO 9001 quality standard company. For more information, visit www.acecomm.com.