Mobilink, Pakistan’s leading cellular service provider and part of the Orascom Telecom Group, today announced the awarding of a contract worth in excess of US$1.5 million to Intec, a leading supplier of business and operations support systems (BSS/OSS) to the global telecom industry. Pakistan’s mobile market expanded by almost 150% to surpass 20 million subscribers in 2005, according to the latest statistics released by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Mobilink led the market with over 11 million customers.

Under the terms of the agreement, Intec will supply the mobile operator with core components from its advanced Settlement product family, Intec InterconnecT v7 and Intec Automated Reconciliation. Together these technologies will substantially enhance Mobilink’s ability to invoice mobile and fixed interconnect partners, cutting billing costs and improving cash flow.

“Pakistan’s telecommunications market is growing in complexity, particularly with the arrival of mobile companies offering content and IP-based communications, hence the need for a billing strategy that can reduce the cost and time associated with accurately reconciling large numbers of inter-operator agreements,” explained Tariq Rashid, CIO of Mobilink, “Intec’s interconnection billing solution has been selected for its proven capabilities in simplifying billing and reconciliation and we are confident that our investment will yield greater interconnect profitability and improved network performance.”

Intec InterconnecT v7 enables an advanced capability to recognise, rate and bill partners for a wide range of services, supporting Mobilink’s growing billing requirements across multi-vendor networks. Intec’s Automated Reconciliation technology will allow Mobilink to reconcile incoming and outgoing interconnect bills quickly and accurately. Intec Automated Reconciliation is designed to automate the process of comparing interconnect charge information from multiple independent interconnect accounting systems. It automates bill reconciliation processes through exchange, comparison and settlement of aggregated billing data, helping to avoid the overhead of manual handling of individual transactions. This reduces settlement time and improves the accuracy of interconnect charges.

“We are extremely pleased to continue our business expansion in this high-growth region with our latest contract in Pakistan,” said Kevin Adams, Intec’s CEO. “Intec’s cutting edge technology will not only provide Mobilink with the opportunity to accelerate its settlement process and generate more revenue, but its will also make better use of the company’s resources while reducing operating costs and streamlining business processes.”