OXFORD, United Kingdom—According to one of the United Kingdom's largest cell-phone retailers, Carphone Warehouse, less than 1 percent of the 170,000 customers that purchased General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) phones signed up for the high-speed service. The company said that while GPRS phones made...
AUSTIN, Texas—SchlumbergerSema and Compaq Computer Corp. jointly launched a customer care and billing solution that integrates advanced Storage Area Networks (SAN) technology, which offers mobile operators higher storage capacity and greater scalability in managing next generation data applications. SAN technology allocates storage on an...
CINCINNATI—Convergys Corp. announced it has signed a five-year billing and customer care contract to provide its Atlys billing product to PrimeCo Personal Communications to support PrimeCo's digital wireless offerings.PrimeCo is upgrading to Atlys Release 8.0 from a previous Convergys product.
OXFORD, United Kingdom—After announcing its wireless initiative last week, BT Group said it is aware of the security concerns surrounding wireless local area network (WLAN) services. The company admitted it intends to address the issue by providing virtual private network (VPN) tunnels to corporate...
CUPERTINO, Calif.—Boingo Wireless Inc. said it has implemented Portal Software Inc.'s billing solution, known as Infranet, for mobile service providers."Boingo developed its billing infrastructure with the Infranet solution, which allowed the company to create and support multiple service and pricing models, maximizing appeal of...
GENEVA—General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) roaming exchanges (GRX) are rapidly emerging as a profitable new service niche in Europe and around the world, as mobile operators get serious about GPRS and struggle to come to grips with the complex roaming and billing issues surrounding...
OKLAHOMA CITY—Dobson Cellular Systems completed deployment of equipment allowing it to offer voice-activated dialing services through Preferred Voice.Dobson said it would market the VoiceDial service, which will allow customers to pre-program unlimited names and numbers on their wireless handset, throughout most of its 17-state...
LONDON—Mobile operator MmO2 said it has signed a 10-year deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars to outsource IBM Corp.'s customer care software.According to the agreement, IBM will redesign, build and run the operations in an integrated fashion, including the billing solutions.
KIRKLAND, Wash.—Nextel Partners Inc. signed a seven-year contract with Amdocs, St. Louis, for provision of a customer care and billing system, data center services and application support."Amdocs was the clear choice for our … needs based on its proven ability to support iDEN technology...
LONDON—BT Group announced details of its wireless initiative, five months after spinning off its mobile subsidiary MmO2. BT plans to create a U.K. public wireless local area network and launch BT-branded mobile service by buying airtime from MmO2.The new wireless strategy is expected to...
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Network infrastructure company Tahoe Networks Inc. has announced partnerships with two companies to provide mobile data services for wireless operators.The two companies are Kabira Technologies Inc. and XACCT Technologies. The Kabira-Tahoe partnership will "enable GPRS, CDMA and UMTS operators to rapidly integrate...
DALLAS—Smart card-enabled solutions provider Gemplus announced it will team with billing solutions company Telemac Corp. to integrate Telemac's IMA-Module network-edge real-time billing software into Gemplus SIM card for wireless devices."The powerful combination of the Telemac solution and our SIM implementation enables wireless carriers to...
LAUREL, Md.—EUR System announced it will add Sentori Inc.'s Sentori 3G's wireless business solutions to the products and services offered in its outsourced data center environment.According to their agreement, EUR will provide the hardware, hosting, systems management and operations for outsourced solution, while Sentori...
BOSTON—Telecom Media Networks, an industry practice of the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group, announced it has integrated Netonomy's MyNetonomy e-Care and e-Commerce solution with Portal Software's Infranet convergent billing solution.The companies said the integrated solution will allow for new direct sales channels, rapid...
ORLANDO—VeriSign was busy at CTIA Wireless 2002, making five announcements plugging new partnerships and services.First, VeriSign outlined its telecommunications strategy, since its acquisition of Illuminet Holdings Inc. and H.O. Systems Inc., for delivering services that carriers can use to expand their data and voice...
ORLANDO—Amdocs unveiled ClarifyCRM, its new end-to-end solution that offers integrated customer relationship management and billing applications to service providers, this week at CTIA Wireless 2002.Amdocs said the new CRM solution will lead to: reduced implementation costs for customers; increased customer satisfaction and loyalty; reduced...
ORLANDO, Fla.—The Yankee Group and Sentori Inc. announced an emerging niche within the MVNO wireless market space during a press conference at CTIA Wireless 2002 earlier this week.The new niche players, mainly affinity and specialty channel MVNOs, offer billing and customer care options to...
ORLANDO, Fla.—Acterna released its AirAudit Call Verification System for GPRS, a product Acterna says is the industry's first centrally managed, distributed solution for service verification on GPRS networks.The system performs fully automated, centrally managed test calls, allowing users to verify the switching, routing, enhanced...
BOCA RATON, Fla.—Wireless Internet communications provider JumpStart Wireless Corp. announced its DispatchSuite will be marketed by Skytel Communications Inc. through its Web site.DispatchSuite allows companies to integrate existing forms including work orders, delivery orders, work requests, sales leads, time sheets, billing data and route...
LONDON—Currently representing 10 percent of total carrier revenues, short message service (SMS) is the dominant data contributor to carrier average revenue per user (ARPU), and its value is expected to continue to grow, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan study.Frost & Sullivan credits...
HANOVER, Germany—E-plus, Germany's third largest wireless operator, selected Lucent Technologies to provide its MiLife SurePay real-time billing system for its GSM network. Lucent said the solution will allow E-plus to offer converged payment and access services to its customers, as well as both...
HONG KONG—The Hong Kong mobile market is set for a transformation, with four third-generation (3G) mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) established, based on the requirements of Hong Kong’s four 3G license holders. The first 3G MVNO services are set to begin at the end...
HONG KONG—Indian company Lifetree Convergence said it supplied its billing and operations system for Shell, which launched a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service in Hong Kong in February. The joint venture between mobile operator Sunday Communications and Shell Hong Kong will introduce an...
HONG KONG—Indian company Lifetree Convergence Ltd. said it supplied its billing and operations system for Shell, which launched a mobile virtual network operator service in Hong Kong in February. The joint venture between mobile operator Sunday Communications Ltd. and Shell Hong Kong Ltd. will...
