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Roadpost Selects CostGuard XG OSS BSS from Info Directions to Support Operations

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Info Directions, a developer of net-centric billing, rating, order management, workflow and selling solutions for the telecommunications industry, is pleased to announce that Toronto-based service provider, Roadpost Inc., has selected its CostGuard(R) XG back office solution to help manage the launch of new services to the company’s international business clients.

“Our six-year partnership with Info Directions has delivered value to our organization and to the customers we serve,” said Roadpost’s Director of IT Louis Chang. “CostGuard XG will give us the flexibility to provide additional products and services to our customers and adapt to the changes taking place in the communications marketplace. We are focused on leveraging our strengths as a service provider to simplify the lives of our clients when they travel abroad and CostGuard XG is a key part of our efforts.”

Launched in 1991, Roadpost provides customized global communications to individuals and corporations, offering subscriptions and short-term rental of cellular, satellite and personal digital assistant communications services. The company’s portfolio includes International Cellular, Global Satellite, International BlackBerry and Worldwide Internet services providing complete global coverage. Roadpost has alliances with industry leaders such as 02(UK)Ltd, Transatel, Swisscom, Telecom Italia Mobile, Vodafone, Bell Mobility, TELUS Mobility, Iridium, France Telecom Mobile Services, iPass, Research in Motion, Motorola and Nokia which allow it to deliver reliable and secure communications. [Read more…]

Bermuda Cablevision First Customer to Deploy JacobsRimell’s Advanced IP Service Activation and Management

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JacobsRimell, a leading provider of customer-centric IP service fulfillment solutions, today announced at the SCTE conference the availability of APS(tm) ‘QuickStart,’ the latest implementation of its innovative Automated Provisioning System (APS).

“We have successfully implemented APS to multi-service cable and telecom service providers around the world, ranging from providers such as Comcast and UPC to Cbeyond and now Bermuda CableVision”, said David Jacobs, co-founder and CTO, JacobsRimell. “The APS QuickStart package will help Bermuda CableVision reach its goal to roll out Point-to-Point Data Services over a short time frame to its large subscriber base and also easily scale new services to new subscribers.”

Bermuda CableVision, the leading cable operator in Bermuda, will use APS QuickStart to more rapidly launch their High Speed Data (HSD) service. This solution will give Bermuda CableVision an automated and integrated platform to manage all of their HSD subscribers and provision all HSD related services, ultimately allowing them to launch new services by evolving rather than replacing their existing infrastructure. [Read more…]

Berg Insight Says Personal Navigation and Tracking Are Most Profitable Location-Based Services

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Berg Insight has recently completed a survey among 200 European location-based services (LBS) professionals in order to take the temperature of this important mobile value added service category. Berg Insight made the survey among LBS professionals at mobile operators, vendors and consultancies in Europe. There were two sets of questions asked to the 200 respondents, one to operators and another set to vendors and consultancies.

Berg Insight asked the operators which LBS applications they already have deployed and got not surprisingly the reply that the most common services today are information services such as yellow pages near you and local weather information. On second and third place came navigation services and tracking. [Read more…]

Lucent Technologies Selected by Telefonica to Increase Performance Management

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Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) has been selected by Telefonica of Spain to maximize the availability and responsiveness of Telefonica’s application servers and end-to-end performance of all network traffic (WiFi, LAN, etc.) using Lucent’s VitalSuite(R) Application Performance Management software.

“We chose Lucent’s VitalSuite(R) Application Performance Management software to significantly increase our overall network and application performance,” said Olegario Mendez, corporate network operations manager at Telefonica de Espana.

Lucent will provide Telefonica Sistemas — Telefonica’s IT department, which is responsible for managing Telefonica’s worldwide network — with VitalSuite(R) performance management agents that monitor key applications and system resources, which are key for millions of Telefonica’s business and consumer customers worldwide. Using software agents and scripts, Telefonica’s IT group will be able to increase the performance of its application servers and systems resources throughout its entire, global network. [Read more…]

Redknee Wins CATA Alliance Award for Outstanding Product Achievement

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Redknee Inc., a provider of innovative infrastructure software that monetizes and personalizes services and content for mobile users, today announced it has received The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA Alliance) award for Outstanding Product Achievement in Information Communications Telecom (ICT).

“Redknee exemplifies Canadian technology success,” said John Reid, President of the CATA Alliance. “The company’s strong focus on technology innovation has led them to become one of the leading forces of innovation in the wireless communication service provider industry, and this is the result of drive, energy and vision.”

Redknee empowers mobile network operators to maximize their differentiation and revenue with products and solutions for converged billing, IP charging, policy decision making and enhanced location, presence, profile, messaging and mCommerce services. The subscriber experience is improved through Redknee’s self-care, loyalty and analytics that deliver the content and services subscribers want, when they want them. [Read more…]

First Hop Launches Operator Business Intelligence Solution at CommunicAsia

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First Hop has announced the launch of the mobile value added services (VAS) Business Intelligence Solution at CommunicAsia. The new solution gives the operator a complete view across their portfolio of in-house and external content provider services, subscriber usage patterns, as well as the revenue that each service brings in.

Timo Laaksonen, the Chief Executive Officer of First Hop, remarked: “The operators are like supermarkets, they want the shelves to be stacked full of goods for people to buy. Unlike supermarkets they are not aware of customer preference and real purchasing behaviour, and don’t fully exploit mapping CRM details. Real-life traffic paints a different picture compared to market surveys.”

The solution is the latest addition in the First Hop Wireless Broker suite of products, introducing the ability to accurately monitor the business performance of VAS. The solution comprises of a data warehouse and reporting system targeted and optimised for VAS usage analysis and business management. The market intelligence is based on the transaction data retrieved from the traffic and service management modules of the product suite. [Read more…]

IBS Solution for Telecommunications Providers Gains Recognition from TeleManagement Forum

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IBS, a leader in the Russian IT and consultancy Market, has become the first Russian IT company to gain a high assessment for its work from TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum). TM Forum is an international institution, which establishes new standards and methodologies for OSS/BSS design and development for the telecommunications market.

According to Sergei Alexandrov, the Director of IBS’s Telecommunications Solutions Center, “we have carried out a tremendous work, with its outcome being submitted for evaluation; on the part of TM Forum, a group of experts was formed to analyze our proposal for compliance with their internal criteria. The high opinion of experts has become an important international acknowledgment of our performance quality and a significant contribution to future development of the practice”.

TM Forum has evaluated a number of IBS’s solutions, utilizing the results and techniques proposed by the TM Forum experts. Particular interest was attracted by the IBS-developed SRFAL product (the System of Revealing Fraud and Analysing Operator’s Profit Losses), presented as an international best practice. [Read more…]

ACM Group, IntraISP Team to Meet Needs of Latin America and the Caribbean Telecommunications-related Service Providers

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ACM Group, a technology consulting and development company, and IntraISP, a premier business management software company, today announced a partnership to meet the business and IT needs of Latin America and the Caribbean telecommunications-related service providers. ACM brings systems integration and consulting expertise, while IntraISP offers a comprehensive CRM, billing and operations support systems (OSS) platform, allowing the two companies to fill a significant market need in Latin America and the Caribbean for solutions for telecommunications-related companies.

“By combining our capabilities, we bring a comprehensive solution that will enable South American service providers to provision complete customer-facing and back-office solutions to meet their current and emerging needs,” said Peter Esparrago, CEO of IntraISP. “Customers will be able to leverage not just software, but the expertise of integrators to address the market needs for triple-play (data/voice/video) services.”

IntraISP’s comprehensive CRM, billing and business management software is built on the latest technology platforms, allowing service providers to implement their own solutions more rapidly, and with a lower total cost of ownership. Effectively, this allows small to mid-size service providers to meet customer needs more quickly and accelerate revenue. [Read more…]

Croatia’s Metronet Deploys Convergys’ Infinys Billing Solution in Newly Deregulated Telecom Market

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Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) provided a unique set of product, consulting, and professional services to implement and integrate a new billing solution to support Croatia’s Metronet telekomunikacije d.d. with complex triple play billing, speedy introduction of new services, and rapid customer growth in Croatia’s newly deregulated telecom market. The Convergys solution for Metronet has gone live, implemented in a matter of months as opposed to longer timeframes often seen in the communications industry.

“As an aggressive new competitor in the triple play arena, we know the importance of speed to market and simplified billing for a complex bundled triple play offering,” said Dennis Rukavina, Chief Financial Officer at Metronet. “We made a strategic commitment in selecting Convergys to consult and implement its solution including Infinys, a comprehensive, off-the-shelf solution that could immediately support the diverse requirements of our sophisticated product suite, and scale to meet our future needs as we undergo rapid expansion.”

The Convergys on-site consulting team completed the implementation on time and within budget in just five months using Convergys’ worldwide implementation best practices learned through over 20 years of experience. As part of the solution, Convergys implemented Infinys [tm], its award winning comprehensive, convergent, business support system software. [Read more…]

cVidya Announces Revenue Assurance Solution for IPTV

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cVidya Networks, a provider of Telecom Data Integrity and Revenue Assurance solutions, announced today the availability of a solution for IPTV services based upon its flagship product, MoneyMap®/Suite. This makes cVidya the first vendor to provide a revenue assurance solution for IPTV. The solution covers both active and proactive aspects of revenue assurance, making it particularly important at the IPTV service deployment stage. cVidya’s solution was recently validated as the revenue assurance component of the IPTV Catalyst project presented by the TeleManagement Forum in Nice.

“Being the first to identify and address the need for revenue assurance in the most innovative and promising line of business in the telecommunications arena today, is an important achievement for cVidya as a leader in our field,” commented Alon Aginsky, CEO of cVidya. “As the services offered by the telecommunications industry continue to multiply, we aim to continually adapt our solutions and lead the revenue assurance industry in fulfilling the changing needs of the communication service providers.”

The business of IPTV has lately become one area in which revenue assurance is especially critical. As CSP’s focus their efforts on IPTV deployment to gain market share, the support systems infrastructure receives lower attention, and they find themselves increasingly exposed to financial risks resulting from data and process integrity issues. Furthermore, information and revenue flows now must be managed between a growing number of content providers and other partners, in addition to the network and consumers. [Read more…]

Intec Honored by AT&T As Outstanding Supplier

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Commitment to excellence over the past year has earned Intec Telecom Systems (LSE: ITL) recognition as an outstanding supplier to AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), one of the world’s leading data, voice, wireless and Internet services providers.

“We are proud of our long-standing tradition of providing unparalleled products and services to our business and residential customers,” said Maureen Merkle, President, AT&T Procurement. “We’re successful on that front in large part thanks to supplier partners like Intec Telecom Systems that consistently go above and beyond the call of duty.”

Intec received one of 49 supplier recognition awards for its work in helping AT&T deliver outstanding service to its customers during the past year. Intec was recognized for its contributions in the Teamwork category. [Read more…]

Digicel Reaches 2 Million Customers with Launch of VoluBill’s Charge It Solutions

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VoluBill, a supplier of real-time charging, control and monitoring applications for IP-based mobile services, today announced the successful launch of its latest versions of Charge it™ for Browsing, Charge It™ for Delivery and Charge it™ for IP solutions in Digicel’s mobile network operations in Trinidad & Tobago and Haiti. Through the installation of VoluBill’s products Digicel is now able to support pre-paid charging for mobile data, content and messaging services for millions of wireless subscribers across its expanding pan Caribbean GSM network of 20 Caribbean markets.

“It is with great pleasure that we announce that Digicel has purchased and deployed our enhanced “Charge it “ solution and the results of the implementation have exceeded expectations,” explains John Aalbers, VoluBill’s CEO. “This is due to the solutions’ cutting edge, real-time technology, which enables Digicel to seamlessly and cost-effectively apply revenue enhancing pre-paid charging plans. VoluBill’s solutions achieve this objective by measuring and charging mobile data, content and messaging services accessed by Digicel’s two million plus subscribers on pre-paid tariffs. The results are greater revenue streams and reliable, non-labour intensive network maintenance.”

Founded in 2001, Jamaica-based Digicel is the leading and fastest-growing GSM network provider in the Caribbean. The company has played an important role in the advancement of cellular communications in the region, offering innovative, competitively priced products and services as well as superior customer care to over two million subscribers. VoluBill’s advanced and well proven solutions enables Digicel to successfully manage its growing subscriber base and offer excellent network coverage as it continues its development across the Caribbean islands. [Read more…]

Convergys Appoints Bawa Singh Country Manager of Customer Care Operations in India

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Convergys Corporation (NYSE:CVG), a global leader in providing customer care, human resources, and billing services, announces the appointment of Dr. Bawa Singh as interim Vice President and Country Manager for Convergys’ Customer Care operations in India, effective June 16, 2006.

“Bawa is a seasoned and successful senior executive with a strong history of influential leadership and accomplishment, traits that are vital to our India operations, and we are pleased to welcome him to Convergys,” said Streit. “India is important to the success of Convergys and Bawa’s appointment as vice president and country manager for Convergys’ Customer Care operations in India is an important component of Convergys’ plans to continue growing its operations in India in the future.”

In this position, Dr. Singh will be responsible for overseeing the operations of Convergys Corporation’s eight contact centers and approximately 10,000 customer care employees in India. Singh will report to Clint Streit, executive vice president of global operations for Convergys’ Customer Care business, and will be located in New Delhi. [Read more…]

Amdocs Ranks First in Global OSS Market According to OSS Observer Report

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Amdocs (NYSE: DOX – News), a provider of software and services to enable integrated customer management and the intentional customer experience(TM), has announced that it was named the leading provider of global operations support systems (OSS) in a recent report by OSS Observer titled, Market Share: Global OSS Supplier Market Leadership in 19 Segments.

“Amdocs has established a leading position in billing systems with a combination of software and extensive services,” said Patrick Kelly, founder and senior analyst of OSS Observer. “Through acquisitions and new development, they have expanded to be a leader in customer care and are emerging as a service fulfillment leader as well. As CSPs push toward greater OSS/BSS convergence, Amdocs portfolio is the most comprehensive offering in the market.”

OSS Observer defines the OSS space to include both network-facing systems (OSS) and aspects of customer-facing business support systems (BSS), such as billing and customer relationship management (CRM). Amdocs has three times the market share of the second largest provider, according to the report, which is an annual ranking of 250 global software and equipment vendors. [Read more…]

Intec Upgrades Interconnect Billing Product

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Intec, a global provider of business and operations support systems (BSS/OSS) for fixed, mobile and next-generation networks, has launched the latest version of Intec Interconnect (previously known as InterconnecT), the world’s leading convergent rating, billing and settlement solution.

Hassan Iftikhar, Intec vice president of product management, said, “With Intec Interconnect v7.1, you choose the functionality needed to suit different environments and settlement requirements. Requirements such as pre-processing, ITU, automated reconciliation and partner relationship management become useful for many service providers as they reach specific milestones in their business development. For example, allowing partners secure, web-based self service facilities may become cost effective after specific services are implemented, or after a particular number of partners are acquired.”

A modular, flexible solution, Intec Interconnect v7.1 supports all service architectures and all settlement billing models, from voice, data and SMS interconnection to international route-based tariffs (ITU), new IP and revenue sharing based agreements with multimedia content VoIP and m-commerce partners. The system offers customers a seamless and efficient transition from traditional telephony into the world of IP and content from the same, single platform. [Read more…]

Elitecore Technologies Changes Name of JISP Billing to Crestel Convergent Billing

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Elitecore Technologies has announced a change of name from JISP Billing to Crestel Convergent Billing. Crestel accurately depicts the end-to-end capabilities of the solution which are in tune with the market movement towards triple-play convergence.

“Crestel represents our core concept of building Scale with Margins in rapidly emerging economies like India and China,” says Nikhil Jain, President and COO, Elitecore Technologies, vendor of Crestel. “Considering the low penetration in these economies, operator concerns involve rapid scale rollouts while delivering high-end, value-added services simultaneously. This requires deep segmentation and high level of innovation at both ends,” he adds.

Crestel is based on a convergent billing framework, providing next generation triple-play services to wireline and wireless networks over a single platform. [Read more…]

NewMarket Technology VOIP Subsidiary XIPTEL Communications Launches Proprietary Decision Support Solution

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Newmarket Technology’s VoIP Subsidiary XIPTEL Communications has launched their proprietary solution for managing a company’s back office operations. XCCP, (Xiptel Customer Control Panel), the core component of XIPTEL’s intellectual property portfolio, has been running the back office functions for XIPTEL since January 2006, and is now available to selected customers.

“Customers can now get on-line access to incoming and outgoing calls whenever they want, from wherever they are,” said Peter Geddis, XIPTEL’s CEO. “Today’s VoIP based systems provide a long list of important features to customers,” said Geddis, “but unless access to useful information and control is made easy and reliable, many of those features will remain unused. Our XCCP system solves those problems, adds real value to our company, and helps set us apart from our competition. Offering new products and services, such as XCCP, is an integral step to building our revenue base to $10 million for this year and meeting our forecast for 100% growth in 2007.”

XCCP handles the back office tasks involved with subscriber management, provisioning, support ticketing, call detail reporting and mediation, and billing. The software features a multi-level security and permissions architecture to allow subscribers, customer administrators, resellers, and system billing, engineering, and executive users to view and manage those elements necessary for day to day operations and planning. [Read more…]

ONO Uses Convergys Infinys Software for Services Bundling, Flexible Pricing, and Increased Cable Market Penetration in Spain

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Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services, announced today its Infinys [tm] rating and billing software is in live operation at ONO, the leading broadband communications operator in Spain. Convergys is providing convergent billing across all of ONO’s services, bolstering its “triple play” offerings of voice, data, and video services, and helping to increase market penetration throughout Spain.

“Because we’ve worked with Convergys since ONO was formed in 1998, we’ve experienced the considerable value and cost efficiencies that Convergys and its solutions and services bring to our business,” said Jorge Vega, CRM and Billing IT Director, ONO. “Moreover, at a time when strong differentiation is needed to attract and retain customers, Convergys gives us the ability to better support our customers with bundled service offerings that meet their needs at competitive prices. With this new ability to differentiate our services, we will be better able to address our potential market of over eighteen million homes.”

The implementation involved the migration of all customers and accounts and over 2.5 million recurring charge services from ONO’s existing billing system to Infinys. [Read more…]

LHS Wins Best Contribution to Billing at IIR Billing and Information Management Systems 2006

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LHS, a leading provider of telecommunications billing and customer care systems has won the “Overall – Best contribution to billing” at the IIR’s World Billing Awards 2006 second year in a row. The World Billing Awards acknowledge best billing practice and raise awareness of how significant billing, charging, IT and associated processes are to the communications industry. LHS was selected for its efforts in supporting IMS and all-IP billing. In the category “Best billing implementation” LHS earned second place.

“We are delighted to acknowledge LHS as winner in the ‘Overall – Best Contribution to Billing’ category for their development work on IMS-ready products.” said Hugh Roberts, Chairman of the Awards Judging Panel and Consultant Director for IIR’s BSS/OSS and RM events. “This year for the first time we took the unusual step of imposing an additional last minute requirement on the finalists in the ‘Overall’ category – and it was significant that each of them chose to highlight a different aspect of their value proposition as the most compelling. It was interesting to us that only one of the finalists mentioned the need to confront and overcome the challenges of IMS and all-IP billing – and that company was LHS.”

LHS recognized the trend towards IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) very early. IMS is a layered horizontal network architecture based on IP standards enabling network operators to offer all kinds of new services to their customers, independent from the type of network access or device used. LHS has managed to cope with the requirements and challenges of IMS and all-IP billing, and taken the industry lead by integrating its key charging and accounting protocol Diameter into its product portfolio. This enables carriers on-line and offline billing in an all-IP environment. [Read more…]

Filed Under: LHS

mBlox Selects Valista Payment Platform for Mobile Internet Billing and WAP Billing

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Valista (www.valista.com), the leading provider of payments and merchandizing solutions enabling the purchase of premium digital services, today announced that mBlox, the world’s largest mobile transaction network, is deploying Valista’s end-to-end transaction engine — PaymentsPlus. mBlox selected the payment platform after a close comparison of the world’s leading vendors and will use it to support its next generation mobile billing services, including WAP billing.

Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman of mBlox, said, “The evolution of premium SMS, an industry we lead, into the next generation of mobile content billing is a huge opportunity for us. We will be able to offer a wider range of innovative and effective payment services for our customers. The mobile content industry will be able to deliver and bill content including mobile TV, video clips, gaming and music downloads. We chose Valista’s technology because it is proven to be the best in the industry, and are pleased to be working with a company with a similar customer-focused ethos to ourselves.”

Valista’s PaymentsPlus solution enables mobile transaction network providers and telecommunications operators to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of the global payments market by offering more flexible payment choices such as direct to mobile bill charging and WAP billing. [Read more…]