OnAir has chosen Highdeal, the world’s leading provider of Pricing & Rating solutions, to manage Mobile OnAir, its mobile telephony offer aimed at airline companies. Created in 2005, OnAir is a subsidiary of Airbus and SITA, a provider of IT solutions for the transporation industry. OnAir’s services enable passengers to use their portable devices (laptops, mobile phones and PDAs) as well as the airplane’s own equipment, to communicate just as easily in the air as on the ground.

For this project, OnAir also chose Bull to create its information systems, including billing, reconciliation functions offered by Highdeal Transactive, support for the company’s complex, business-critical processes, as well as advanced analysis and Business Intelligence functionalities.

In December 2007, Air France and OnAir launched the world’s first inflight mobile communication service offer. Airbus A318 passengers can now send and receive text and multimedia messages as well as emails and since April 2008, they can also make inflight phone calls.

Highdeal Transactive allows OnAir to manage billing as well as commissioning of its numerous partners

The Mobile OnAir offer is based on numerous partnerships with satellite bandwidth providers and business partners such as interconnection operators and airline companies, who are both OnAir customers and partners. The revenue generated by inflight communication is shared between the different companies involved since passengers are seen as roamers on the OnAir network and as such, their mobile phone operators must pay a roaming fee to OnAir. Highdeal Transactive is used to calculate the percentages and manage the commission owed to airline companies. The commission rules are clearly defined in the pricing plan, therefore partners can be commissioned according to usage, percentage, variations in volume or hourly time slots. Highdeal Transactive is also used for the billing of Internet Service installations, WebMail and WebChat, that are offered by OnAir for inflight access. Finally, the bandwidth service provided by Link OnAir will also be billed using the Highdeal Transactive software solution. It was Highdeal’s proven track record for managing numerous partners as well as its flexibility in defining offers in a B2B context (one per client), that convinced OnAir to go ahead with this partnership.

At the crossroads of the telecommunications and aeronautics industries
OnAir was looking for a flexible pricing and billing solution that would allow it to manage commissions in an industry beyond the realm of ‘classic telecommunications’, given that certain calculations are based on data from the aeronautics industry. “We are extremely pleased with Bull’s services and Highdeal’s ability to adapt to our unique and fast evolving context,” said Jean-Damien Beaud, Director of OnAir’s Information Systems. “Our mobile telephony offer is at the crossroads of the telecomunications and aeronautics industries. We were quickly convinced by the different features of the Highdeal Transactive software solution as its functional coverage corresponds to our needs, particularly when calculating interconnection costs and bill-cross-referencing which are an essential part of our business,” he concluded.

Bull, a leading integrator of convergence technologies, has delivered a robust and innovative information system for OnAir

Bull has designed a robust solution capable of evolving alongside OnAir’s activities. Thanks to its sectoral expertise and knowledge of open technologies, Bull – as systems integrator and IT manufacturer – is able to bring the flexibility required by telecom operators and to build reliable ‘carrier grade’ information systems that offer a high level of service in any condition. The project includes three phases. The first phase allows OnAir to make use of Call Collect systems, reporting procedures as well as Highdeal Transactive’s billing solution. The second and third phases will provide OnAir with complementary CRM functions, bill-cross-referencing and advanced reporting.

“We are very proud to have been selected by OnAir for the integration of this complex and highly innovative project,” said Jean-François Leprince-Ringuet, General Manager, Bull Telecommunications and Media. “The telecommunications sector is evolving rapidly and this new service is a perfect example of new convergence applications for fixed–mobile usage. As a partner integrator of equipment manufacturers, Bull brings its IT expertise and industrial know-how to implement flexible, efficient and innovative solutions throughout the world,” he added.

“We are very pleased to have a customer who brings new mobile services to airplanes. OnAir is a pioneer in this field, so it was quite natural for them to opt for the highly successful Highdeal Transactive software solution,” concluded Eric Lavenir, EVP Sales EMEA for Highdeal.

About OnAir
OnAir was incorporated in February 2005 and is owned by Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer with the most modern and comprehensive product line on the market, and SITA, the world’s leading provider of air transport focused applications, communications and IT infrastructure.

OnAir’s goal is to give airline passengers the ability to communicate from the sky. The OnAir service portfolio addresses passenger voice and data communications needs on both long- and short-haul flights, on commercial Airbus and Boeing aircraft, while focusing on passengers’ needs, offering choice, and ensuring an economically viable business model for airlines. OnAir is a member of the GSM Association and an Inmarsat Distribution Partner for SwiftBroadband services.

About Bull
As one of the leading European IT companies, Bull delivers open, flexible and secure information systems. The group helps public and private sector customers transform their information systems, applying its know-how and expertise in three main areas:

* Capitalizing on its extensive mainframe experience, Bull designs and produces robust, innovative and open servers, based on industry-standard technologies;
* Building on its alliances with leading ISVs and long-standing involvement with Open Source, Bull develops and implements flexible and interoperable application infrastructures which give business processes the freedom to evolve;
* Bringing together recognized expertise in end-to-end IT security,
* Bull secures data and exchanges that are so critical in preserving customers’ business integrity.

Bull has a particularly strong presence in the public, healthcare, finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and defense sectors. Its distribution network and business partners cover more than 60 countries worldwide.

For more information visit: http://www.bull.com

About Highdeal
Highdeal is the world’s leading provider of Pricing & Rating solutions. By delivering unconstrained usage-based business models coupled with real-time, multi-party transaction management, Highdeal solves the billing problem for service providers. Proven by 200 deployments in more than 50 countries, the Highdeal Transactive® software solution provides greater business agility and lower TCO. From telecoms, Internet and media sectors, to transportation, logistics, and financial markets, businesses across the service economy rely on Highdeal to increase their competitiveness. For more information, visit www.highdeal.com.