Ericsson bolsters billing suite with MetraTech purchase

Ericsson said it plans to acquire U.S.-based billing and settlement provider MetraTech in a move designed to bolster its suite of services beyond traditional network equipment.
Financial terms of the deal were not released, but Ericsson said it will take on all 140 MetraTech employees and contractors. Those employees and MetraTech’s platform are set to be integrated into Ericsson’s billing suite and help expand its presence in the U.S. market.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute last month accepted a proof-of-concept from MetraTech, BT and Huawei to “investigate operational efficiency in network function virtualization capacity planning, provisioning and billing.” That offering is expected to be published later this year.
“MetraTech’s metadata-based billing solutions strengthen our extensive OSS and BSS portfolio and billing capabilities across a range of sectors, helping us extend our leadership as we support a world with increasingly more connections,” explained Per Borgklint, SVP and head of Ericsson’s Business Unit Support Solutions.
Ericsson, which is the world’s No. 1 telecom equipment vendor, earlier this year scored a contract with T-Mobile US to provide the carrier with OSS/BSS platform. The long-term, managed services contract included both the T-Mobile and MetroPCS operations.
Ericsson’s push into telecom software in general and OSS/BSS solutions in particular has accelerated during the last three years, in the wake of its $1.5 billion purchase of Telcordia in 2011. Ericsson had previously offered OSS/BSS solutions when it bought Telcordia, but the two companies had complementary offerings and client rosters. At the time of the acquisition, Ericsson noted that Telcordia was particularly strong in service fulfillment.
The latest deal for MetraTech is expected to close during the third quarter of this year.
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