LHS, a leading provider of telecommunications and billing software, has revealed the results of a breakthrough performance test for its fully convergent billing and customer care system, BSCS iX. On an enterprise-class Sun Fire E25K server equipped with 72 UltraSPARC IV processors at 1,5 GHz processor, BSCS iX generated 1.125 million invoices per hour supporting 40 million customers.

In another benchmark run, BSCS iX was running on a Sun Fire E25K server equipped with Sun’s brand-new 1,8 GHz processor, setting a new billing performance record of 1.265 million invoices per hour on this server, a mark-up of 12 %.

The performance test was run in a production-like environment with real-life tariff models and promotional offers, comprising friends and family discounts and free units. BSCS iX’s Best-Option-Plan (BOP) was incorporated to calculate the best tariff option from several alternatives, depending on the customer’s usage scenario.

The benchmarking covered all modules, from the collection of network events and customer care to the complete rating and billing chain, in order to test every aspect of the billing system. It took place at Sun Microsystems’s Customer Benchmark Center in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA .

Dr. Jens Troetscher, Chief Technology Officer, LHS said: “BSCS iX architecture lays the groundwork for these outstanding performance results. With its parallel processing capabilities in rating and billing, BSCS iX achieved excellent results in these latest benchmark tests run on the powerful enterprise-class Sun Fire E25K server.”

Yousef Yacoub, Senior Director of Global Partner Engineering at Sun said: “This important benchmark test showed the strength of the Sun Fire E25K and BSCS iX combination, offering carriers a powerful first-grade solution. Our good partnership results in excellent performance for our customers. It’s a striking result and we’re proud of what’s been achieved.”

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

About LHS
LHS is a leading provider of telecom billing and customer care systems across the wireless, wireline, and IP telecom markets worldwide. LHS Business Support Systems offer full convergence on various levels, supporting the complete range of business models both across the mix of fixed and mobile services, as well as prepaid and postpaid services.

LHS builds innovative systems that enable our customers to introduce new services fast, helping drive revenues up, while keeping operational costs to a minimum. LHS was awarded “Best Billing or Customer Care Solution” by the GSM Association in Cannes in 2005, and won the IIR World Billing Awards for its “Overall Best Contribution to Billing” in London in 2005 and 2006.

LHS is an independent software vendor (ISV) with headquarters in Germany , and offices in Brazil , Czech Republic , France , Malaysia , Turkey , and United Arab Emirates. For more information, please visit www.lhsgroup.com