| 29 September 2009 Welcome to VanillaPlus Bites, the monthly html,
communications industry news service Headlines Sponsors A Big Thank You to our sponsors Redknee, Comarch and Convergys for their help in bringing you VanillaPlus Bites. | 
| Redknee's revenue generating solutions provide advanced converged billing, rating, charging and policy for voice, messaging and next generation data services to over 70 network operators in over 50 countries. Come see us in person for further discussions at AfricaCom in Cape Town November 11-12 at stand P52 or we can schedule an in-person meeting on our website. For more information, go to www.redknee.com |  |  | Since 1993, Comarch has been specialising in designing, implementing and integrating solutions and services for telecommunications operators. Experience gained throughout this period, in addition to its knowledge of the latest industry trends, led to the development of a wide customer portfolio that spreads across four continents and includes the biggest market players: T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Telefonica O2, as well as MVNO operators such as Auchan Telecom, France. Comarch’s offering for telecom operators is primarily addressed to fixed, cable and broadband operators, mobile operators, wholesale departments, MVNO/MVNE operators, ISPs and VoIP operators and content providers and IPTV operators. More information can be found at: www.telecoms.comarch.com
| | 
| Convergys is a leading global provider of software and services to the telecommunications industry. With more than 25 years of experience, gained from working with leading companies in more than 70 countries they serve some of the world’s largest and best-known brands in fixed-line, mobile, cable, content, Internet, and satellite services. The Convergys portfolio of Smart Solutions for intelligent rating, billing, and BSS enables clients to create, differentiate and monetise their service offers. Convergys Smart Solutions and Smart Apps help clients drive revenue growth and market share, improve time-to-market for new offers and services and deliver a consistently excellent customer experience. More information can be found at: www.convergys.com | | | 
Bohdan Zabawskyj
Redknee's CTO heads up our next webinar | Redknee to host on Wednesday 28 October
14:00 London, 15:00 Paris, 09:00 New York, 17:00 Dubai
Moderated by VanillaPlus, Redknee will be hosting the next in our series of live, 'Thought Leadership' Webinars on Wednesday 28 October at 14:00 GMT (15.00 CET). TOPIC: How Convergent Billing is Benefitting Network Operators & Re-defining the Subscriber Experience SPEAKERS: Bohdan Zabawskyj, Chief Technology Officer, Redknee
and Humera Malik, Director of Product Marketing, Redknee MODERATOR: George Malim, Contributing Editor, VanillaPlus Attendance is free, click here to register.
| | Contract News: Angola Telecom places first-time order for ECtel's fraud management system ECtel increases African footprint in fraud-revenue system provision
Angola Telecom, Angola’s primary telecommunications provider, currently serves over 110,000 Angolan customers, and is the country’s international gateway for communication. It has recently selected ECtel, and its partner, the LR Group, to deploy FraudView® for fraud-detection and prevention, risk management systems, new subscriber monitoring and network performance.
“ECtel’s FraudView® provides us with the tools to maximise our revenue potential and prevent fraud losses, which is critical in a fast growing company such as ours,” said Dr Antonio Alberto Briffel Neto, Administrator of Angola Telecom. “As the country's leading national, international and domestic communications provider, we require the innovation and flexibility provided by ECtel. Not only did ECtel provide us with the market’s best solution, but they packaged it together with supreme service and support as well.” www.ectel.com
Contract News: Accenture to implement fraud management system for Italy's PosteMobile Accenture teamed with HP to deliver for Italian mobile services provider
Accenture and HP are to deliver a raft of services to PosteMobile to provide security for customer financial transactions, deliver a high level of fraud protection, and enable mobile handsets to transfer money, payments, and make purchases. Accenture implemented and maintains PosteMobile's fraud management solution, which is based on the HP CentralView software platform.
"The work Accenture and HP are doing around the HP CentralView Fraud Risk Management and Dealer Performance Audit solutions are important building blocks in our effort to maintain leadership as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in Italy," said Paola Painelli, fraud manager at PosteMobile. "We now have real-time monitoring and predictive analytics solutions that enable us to respond quickly to unusual behaviour, either from the network or from our dealers, which dramatically improve our business performance and make us more competitive." www.accenture.com
Contract News: Internet Solutions expands use of Ontology Systems' OSS/CAD™ Semantic data alignment system delivers OpEx cost reduction
Internet Solutions, the South African based Converged Communication Services Provider, has extended the footprint of Ontology Systems’ OSS/CAD1 to automate a pre-existing manual Data Integrity and Data Alignment project. The new extension, which took just over a month to finish, aligns data in five key OSS and BSS systems – CRM, Network Discovery, Circuit Inventory, IP Services Inventory and Data Centre Service Inventory – to provide an accurate picture of what services are being delivered to which enterprise customer. Daniel Schultz, manager of Voice, Billing and Provisioning at Internet Solutions stated: “We understand the challenge of keeping data accurate and aligned across the silos. The cost consequences of misalignment affect revenue, risk and service management and are just too important to ignore. Unfortunately, a single complex customer audit can take weeks to manually perform, so we were looking for a faster result.”
Schultz continued: “The solution to the problem was already within our grasp, OSS/CAD had been previously deployed for SIA and all we had to do was simply extend OSS/CAD’s deployment; it took less than a month and automates and operationalises our manual audit process, improving efficiency, quality and customer satisfaction and dramatically lowering OpEx.” www.ontology.com
Contract News: Tata Teleservices prepaid service offering launches with Telcordia technology Unprecedented pre paid subscriber growth answered with new GSM-based service
India's fastest growing nationwide, dual-technology telecom service provider, has launched its GSM-based prepaid service offerings. The CDMA operator's new GSM network has been supported by Telcordia, with Tata Teleservices opting to deploy the Comverse® ONE Billing & Active Customer Management product and a number of Value-Added Services, including SMS Centre, MMS Centre, Messaging Gateway, Mobile Internet Gateway, Next-Generation Voicemail, Call Completion and Ringback Tone services.
Telcordia serves the growing Indian communications market through Telcordia Technologies India Private Ltd, which was established in 2006 and is headquartered in Gurgaon. The company includes Telcordia India Labs, based in Chennai, that provides dedicated software resources for mobile, fixed line and cable operators throughout India. www.telcordia.com
Contract News: Celona complete data migration for SERCO on behalf of the Victorian Department of Justice Successful migration enables traffic infringement management application to go live
Celona Technologies, alongside systems integrator The Mastermind Group (TMG), has completed a major project for SERCO to enable the Victorian Department of Justice to migrate to a new version of SERCO’s software application (EROS), which is used to process Victorian infringement data.
The programme utilised Celona’s new generation application data migration platform, Celona Evolve, which enabled the business to incrementally migrate data, people and processes to the new SERCO system with significantly reduced cost when compared to traditional ETL and scripting methods. With the business rules of the source system data constantly changing, Celona Evolve’s ability to process real-time data changes, exception handling, auditing and reporting, enabled the business to have control and intelligence of the migration programme. www.celona.com
Company News: CA to buy NetQoS in €135m deal With revenues in 2008 of €40m, NetQoS has experienced a 58% CAGR over five years
The IT management software company, CA, reports that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held NetQoS® Inc, a provider of network performance management and service delivery solutions. CA enables the management of networks, systems, application performance, and cloud computing. NetQoS' systems will extend CA's capabilities in network and systems management, application performance management, and cloud management.
At the close of the transaction, Joel Trammell will join CA as senior vice president and general manager, and Dr Cathy Fulton, NetQoS chief technology officer and executive vice president of Products, will join CA as senior vice president, Software Engineering. Initially, NetQoS will operate as an independent entity within CA's Infrastructure Management and Automation business unit and will report to Ajei Gopal. It is anticipated that most of NetQoS' 250 employees will remain with CA. www.ca.com
Company News: SunTec and SeaChange announce new partnership The two companies deliver an integrated IPTV middleware and billing solution to India's MyWay
SunTec, provider of convergent transaction pricing and billing systems, has partnered with video-on-demand, IPTV and advertising software and systems provider SeaChange International to offer television service providers globally automated provisioning of IPTV consumers and accounts in ‘near real time’, while supporting complex revenue sharing business rules.
The SunTec and SeaChange partnership has already resulted in the integration of SunTec’s convergent billing solution, TBMS-T, with SeaChange's TV Navigator IPTV middleware for the Smart Digivision's MyWay IPTV service. Available in 54 cities across India on Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) broadband networks, MyWay is expected to reach three million subscribers in the first five years. www.suntecgroup.com and www.schange.com
Company News: Roamware completes acquisition of Macalla Acquisition aims to position Roamware as a leading developer of mobile financial services (MFS)
Roamware Inc, a provider of mobile roaming systems, has completed the acquisition of Macalla Software Ltd, a developer of mobile financial services (MFS) systems. Macalla’s m-commerce and mobile banking products are deployed by banks and operators around the world and include adding prepaid minutes, credit transfers, international remittance, person to person transactions and bill payment.
With Macalla’s acquisition, Roamware aims to specifically address the needs of low income, unbanked communities across the world. According to Juniper Research, the service provider market revenues will exceed US$5bn globally by 2013. These revenues are based on the commissions and charges acquired from the gross value of money transactions derived from mobile money transfer services and remittances. Juniper Research highlights a significant opportunity for the providers and vendors of mobile money transfer (MMT) services as the market takes off, beginning as early as 2010.
Macalla will adopt the Roamware brand and the expanded team will continue to be based out of Dublin servicing existing and new clients. www.roamware.com
Research: Mobile operators miss out on 'summer holiday' revenue New survey finds subscribers not using data services abroad
Two-thirds of people who have been on holiday abroad this year and have an Internet-enabled phone (67%) did not use data services when holidaying abroad this summer, according to YouGov research commissioned by Openet. The survey of UK holidaymakers found that there is a huge untapped opportunity for mobile operators to deliver data services to subscribers roaming abroad, but only if operators can get their pricing right and consumers feel in control of their data services.
While new EU Data Roaming Regulations will play a significant role in keeping down data roaming charges, the survey indicates that there is room for mobile operators to drive roaming subscriber data usage. Key findings of the survey of UK Internet-enabled mobile phone users who have holidayed abroad in 2009 include:
In all, 67% of respondents chose not to use data roaming at all when they were abroad, with only 8% using data services at least once a day. A total of 64% of respondents said they would prefer to be informed of roaming charges by SMS when they first arrive in the country. www.openet.com
People News: Nokia Siemens Networks promotes to find a new CEO as Simon Beresford-Wylie steps down  | | Rajeev Suri, NSN's new CEO, effective from 1st October 2009 | The Nokia Siemens Networks Board of Directors has appointed Rajeev Suri as their new chief executive officer. Suri succeeds Simon Beresford-Wylie, who will support Suri during a transition period, until 1 November, before leaving the company. Suri will be based at Nokia Siemens Networks' headquarters in Espoo, Finland.
Suri, who currently leads the Services business of Nokia Siemens Networks, brings 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry to the role of CEO. Previous positions have included leading the Asia-Pacific region during a time of significant growth in both products and service sales; overseeing teams for customers such as Hutchison; and managing products. In previous roles, he has been based in various locations including India, Finland, the UK, West Africa and Singapore. www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com
 | Lars Wahlstrom moves
to Arieso as CEO, from Oracle | People News: Telepo appoints Lars Wahlström as its new CEO Telepo has appointed Lars Wahlström from Oracle as its new CEO. At Oracle, Lars Wahlström led the construction of its telecoms business as group vice president for the Global Telecom and Media Industry Business Unit. In addition, he was responsible for Supply Chain and Master Data Management within the EMEA region. The recruitment of Lars Wahlström is a strategic part of Telepo's continued expansion and growth.
Commenting on the hire, Hans Ahlinder, chairman of the Board for Telepo, emphasised that this is a strategic recruitment. "Lars Wahlström joins us from one of the largest and most profitable IT companies in the world, and he has managed several acquisitions of telecoms and media companies. We are very pleased that one of the most prominent managers in our industry is joining Telepo. He has the right background and knowledge to continue our expansion to new markets and increase sales to operators and service providers." www.telepo.com
People News: Larry Ayres joins MetraTech as VP of Engineering In his new role, Ayres is responsible for MetraTech's Research and Development organisation. His development background comes from Comverse Technology, Inc. where he was responsible for R&D of the Media Server, Line Cards and Signaling groups, development of a Mobile Game Business Unit, and leader of $200m in product revenue.
Ayres is a telecommunication veteran in the software industry with a proven track record of building organisations with innovation and quality. He has managed multinational teams of over 225 people for both Comverse and Boston Technology, where he was responsible for the development organisation of one of the world's largest and most complex global voicemail systems. www.metratech.com
New Products: Comarch launches new mobile product 'Next Generation Planning' To provide support for the planning and management of mobile networks
Comarch Next Generation Network Planning is a multi-vendor and multi-technology solution for planning and managing a mobile network including radio, transport and the core network. The heart of the NGNP solution is Comarch Process-Driven Inventory with flexible process management and the automation engine, which enables automation of network operation.
Comarch Next Generation Network Planning enables simplification and automation of network operation through the integration of planning and optimisation, configuration management and network provisioning functionalities. This allows for quickly integrating new network elements and implementing configuration changes to the network. By means of task automation many manual activities can be avoided and operational efficiency can be increased. As a result, mobile operators will be able to speed up network rollouts and upgrades and shorten service introduction time. www.ngnp.comarch.com
New Products: RateIntegration launches Loyalty Manager (RLM) v3 Product developed for real-time, event-driven loyalty promotions
The latest software release of RLM provides full support for marketing and business analysts to create and instantly launch any new loyalty promotion without any IT programming or changing any of the existing systems. Gartner’s recently published reports indicate that service providers are generating “10- 15 times the response rates from real-time and event triggered marketing promotions as compared to mass marketed campaigns".
Powered by RateIntegration’s long-established rules engine, PriceMaker, RLM is designed to process in real time any event feeds. It integrates into an operator’s BSS framework enabling real-time data capture and ensuring that existing subscriber profiles can be used without data duplication. It is an integrated online application that automates delivery of interactive, phased promotion messaging and rewards using existing BSS components and their diverse outbound marketing channels. www.rateintegration.com
Event Diary - What's on in Telecoms OSS 2.0 Driving the Services Revolution
14 October, 2009
The Cumberland Hotel, London, UK
Official Media Partner: VanillaPlus
www.lightreading.com/live IPTV Forum Eastern Europe
20-21 October, 2009
Hilton Prague Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic
Official Media Partner: VanillaPlus
www.iptv-easterneurope.com
North Africa Com
27-28 October, 2009
JW Marriott, Cairo, Egypt
Official Media Partner: VanillaPlus
nafrica.comworldseries.com How Convergent Billing is Benefiting Network Operators and Re-defining the Subscriber Experience Live Webinar
28 October, 2009 - 14:00 London, 15:00 Paris, 10:00 New York, 18:00 Dubai
Free to attend, online
To register click here
www.vanillaplus.com AfricaCom
11-12 November, 2009
Cape Town, South Africa
Official Media Partner: VanillaPlus
africa.comworldseries.com
AfricaCom returns to Cape Town for the 12th year with one endorsement coming straight from the top: “AfricaCom is a fast track opportunity to engage with peers and vendors and to learn of existing and upcoming technology and innovation,” says Chris Gabriel, CEO, Zain.
The strategic congress covers all the need to know topics around sustaining growth: invesment; broadband deployments; outsourcing; value-added services; marketing and more. The 75-strong speaker panel includes leading African operators and investors and boasts 50% more CxOs than before. Reflecting on their achievements and forthcoming strategies, they will present across 4 plenary sessions, 2 special focus days and 8 streams.
The 220-stand exhibition features all of the major vendors, an opportuntity for attendees to see, touch and try the latest solutions to hit the market. Register for your FREE pass online: http://bit.ly/QmDOK
VanillaPlus Magazine Next Issue: Out 12 October 2009 Including the VanillaPlus Directory: 1 day left to be included in the 2010 Edition
The only industry Directory of its kind with over 450 company listings and distributed to over 8,000 key decision makers within EMEA. Get listed today for 12 months in our next annual edition! If you want to be listed both online and in the hard copy version for just 399 GBP for the year with your company name, description, logo and contact details then contact Cherisse Draper TODAY on 44 (0)1634 243869 or email: cherisse@vanillaplus.com
Editorial Features in October include: - Can operators achieve unified rating and charging in pre-IMS networks?
- Customer Self-Service: Is this an operator's Swiss army knife?
- Mobile Payments: Ever the bridesmaid, never the bride?
- Is profitability in emerging markets just an illusion?
- The worst boss I ever had
- An end to 'Bill Shock'
Publication: Monday 12 October, 2009
To secure your copy of VanillaPlus Magazine subscribe (Free in Europe, Middle East and Africa*) at www.vanillaplus.com
*Terms & Conditions apply December 2009 Magazine Advertising Deadline: Friday 27 November, 2009.
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