CANNES, France-Thanks to Comverse Technology Inc., the interoperability gap between GSM and CDMA may soon become history.
At this week’s 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, the company, using its Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC), demonstrated multimedia-messaging interoperability between both wireless networks.
“This demonstration marks a significant achievement for the wireless industry in bridging the gap between CDMA and GSM networks and the implementation of the latest multimedia applications,” said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDMA Development Group.
The company said it has been working on this project for three years with a slew of vendors and operators in both protocol communities.
“We’ll create an environment where complete MMS is network agnostic,” said Amit Mattatia, general manager of MMS division at Comverse.
In achieving this, the company tackled two obstacles, including content adaptation between the networks and handsets.
“We adapted content to handset capabilities for user experience,” said Mattatia.
He said Comverse has been working with CDMA pioneer Qualcomm for up to a year on the project.
“These capabilities are a testament to Comverse’s ability to meet the global demand for inter-carrier MMS interoperability as well as further validation of the openness and flexibility provided by the BREW solution,” said Johan Lodenius, senior vice president of European business relations.
LightSurf announced an interoperability deal between Sprint and Bell Mobility for picture messaging. “This announcement marks a turning point in the wireless industry, as interoperator picture sharing will trigger rapid and wide-scale multimedia messaging adoption across North America,” said Andy Seybold of the Andrew Seybold Group.
LogicaCMG also said it has signed 19 new MMS deals with operators, including KPN Mobile, Singtel of Singapore and Maxis in Malaysia.
Comverse also announced additions to its ImPact Call Management and Call Completion applications portfolio. The new services, some of which were developed jointly with SoloMio Corp., offer real-time call handling options to the person being called and the caller. Smart Call applications allow users to divert calls to an alternative number or respond with a pre-configured SMS or MMS messages. Voicemail Screening allows users to hear voicemail messages in real time. Notify Me sends a message via SMS to the caller when the called party becomes available, and Connect Me offers a one-touch connection for the caller upon receiving a Notify Me SMS.
Comverse also announced the release of Version 4.25 of its Real-Time Billing and Prepaid Solution, which enables real-time billing for data as well as voice services for both pre- and post-paid subscribers.
