VoluBill, a leading provider of flexible data charging solutions to telecoms operators, today announced its further expansion into Africa’s mobile market with a strategic new deal in Cameroon. Under the terms of the agreement VoluBill will supply its Charge it™ suite of solutions to Orange Cameroon, the country’s biggest and fastest growing mobile operator. VoluBill’s combined technologies will offer the flexibility and scalability to enable Orange to quickly implement mobile services and pricing when required. The solutions will also provide revenue generating support for Orange’s new wireless data offerings such as WAP and other General Packet Radio Services (GPRS).

Orange Cameroon’s IT Manager, Eric Diwouta, cited VoluBill’s previous experience with Orange as a key reason for choosing the vendor’s solutions. “VoluBill has enjoyed successful collaborations with other Orange sites around the world so it seemed logical to approach them directly for our mobile charging requirements,” explains Diwouta. “We are confident the vendor’s sophisticated technology, coupled with a professional, highly experienced team, will ensure a smooth delivery of their solutions as well as a guarantee that our business needs will be met from day one. This includes real-time chargeable access to advanced data services for all our existing and future pre-paid customers.”

As Africa enters an age of advanced mobile IP services, VoluBill’s technologies will help Orange Cameroon stay ahead in this competitive environment as well as maintain customer loyalty. The Charge it™ for IP solution will be installed to analyse all IP traffic to allow Orange to filter, control and charge, in real-time, any type of IP data. VoluBill’s Charge it™ for Browsing solution for Web and WAP browsing will enable Orange to filter, control and charge, in real-time, for any WAP and HTTP traffic on its network. The Charge it™ on Delivery solution will then ensure the successful completion of WAP download services and enable Orange to charge customers only on successful delivery of services rather than on content requests.

According to Eric Diwouta, VoluBill’s solutions will play an integral part in the company’s plans to expand its portfolio of GPRS services. “The Charge it range of solutions will be installed to ensure future requirements can be satisfied in an efficient and cost-effective way. VoluBill’s solutions will be in commercial operation later this year and will support various charging plans for pre-paid WAP and WEB browsing as well as other GPRS based services in the immediate future.”

France Telecom’s mobile group Orange is one of VoluBill’s most valuable and loyal customers. The company has deployed its charging solutions at a number of Orange sites around the world, including the Caribbean, Botswana and the Dominican Republic.

“We are extremely pleased to be expanding our global reach with Orange to include one of Africa’s most dynamic mobile markets,” said John Aalbers, VoluBill’s CEO. “Orange’s decision to use Charge it for its operations in Cameroon is a testimony to VoluBill’s highly regarded and proven mobile technology. Offering an impressive and unparalleled range of charging options, the Charge IT portfolio can help determine how content or transactions can be priced, delivered and charged using different business models. This level of versatility and scalability will help Orange maintain leadership and market innovation.”

About VoluBill (www.volubill.com)
VoluBill is the leading independent provider of real time charging, control and monitoring solutions for IP-based services. VoluBill’s state of the art “on the wire” technology provides the basis for a range of high value, real time applications such as charging, control, monitoring, packet tagging and revenue assurance. Operators around the world are using VoluBill’s solutions for:

– “Zero leakage” Prepaid and Postpaid data and content charging
– Monitoring, charging and control of the full suite of 3G services
– Peer to Peer services (e.g. VoIP) monitoring, charging and control (blocking, de-prioritisation or premium charging)
– Monitoring, charging and control for IMS and converged Fixed-Mobile networks
– Overcoming the limitations of GGSN based solutions
– Enhancements to existing M-Payments and M-Commerce solutions.

Founded end of 2001, VoluBill is a privately owned company, backed by strong International investors (Deutsche Venture Capital, Sofinnova Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, Argo Global Capital and SPEF Ventures) with customer reference sites across the globe.