Telcordia (www.telcordia.com), a global provider of telecommunications software and services, today announces an expanded relationship with Openet Telecom, a global provider of OSS solutions. Building on Telcordia’s ability to offer market-leading real-time charging solutions, Fusionworks(TM) ActiveCharge from Openet enhances the Telcordia(R) Converged Real-Time Charging solution by providing wireline and wireless operators with a unique, pre-integrated combination. This enhanced, deployed solution helps ensure that global operators adopting, or who plan to adopt, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) can stay ahead of the requirement to bill for any service, in any way, at any time.

As operators introduce new services with real-time authorization, charging and settlement requirements, the need for scalable, high performing solutions that can control hundreds of thousands of complex simultaneous transactions is mission critical. Active mediation augments Telcordia’s extensive converged real-time charging capabilities, increasing the functionality that frees operators to create, deliver, and accurately charge in real time for new revenue-generating services including rich interactive multimedia, location-based and personal information services. The enhanced solution tracks every stage of a transaction from ordering, through delivery and payment, and ensures that customers are only charged if the service request has been fulfilled and they have sufficient credit to complete a given transaction. This is the latest example of how Telcordia continues to deliver market-leading, sophisticated real-time charging systems that operators rely on in order to manage the entire transactional charging process from beginning to end, while also guaranteeing a smooth customer experience.

“As Telcordia continues to enable operators to flexibly create, deploy and charge for new services in real time, our offering with Openet Telecom offers operators a pre-integrated solution for active mediation that allows them to continue creating new services while remaining fully in control of subscriber transactions,” said Doug Fantuzzi, Vice President, Global Solutions, Telcordia. “We expect active mediation, as part of real-time charging, to accelerate the adoption of new services since it allows operators to quickly and seamlessly provide more billing options and encourage subscribers to use and pay for new services, while gaining even more interactivity.”

The addition of active mediation allows subscribers to put in place a number of real-time controls over the prepaid or postpaid accounts they hold. For example, parental controls can be set over accounts where children are downloading data that mandates a limit to their account spend within a set of parameters, all in real time. As operators respond to growing consumer demand for greater control over their own accounts, Telcordia is clearing the way for operators to empower their customers, which in turn will result in quicker adoption of new services.

“Openet is pleased to work with Telcordia, the undisputed leader in the growing real-time charging market,” said Joe Hogan, founder and CTO of Openet. “This is a powerful relationship because we have anticipated the integrated approach to real-time charging and active mediation that the market now needs, and the solution is a market leading combination.”

Telcordia(R) Converged Real-Time Charging is an IMS-ready online charging system that supports both IMS and legacy networks simultaneously. A unique, highly flexible solution, it enables quick, easy creation and implementation of advanced services, rate plans, and promotions based on true real-time charging for any service on any network.

It is an open, flexible and fully interoperable element of the Telcordia(R) Maestro(TM) IMS Portfolio, a powerful set of wireless, wireline and converged products, services and applications that enables carriers to offer any service, over any network, via any device. With customer deployments in all regions of the world, Telcordia has already taken an early lead in the emerging IMS market, which is quickly becoming the standard network architecture for rich, converged services offered by operators of all types. With the Maestro portfolio, wireless, wireline, cable, and converged operators can realize the broad advantages of complete convergence and benefit from added revenue potential, greater network and operational efficiencies, reduced churn, and increased customer satisfaction and retention.

Fusionworks(TM) ActiveCharge from Openet is an IMS-compliant Online Charging Systems (OCS) that supports the widest set of standardized fixed, mobile and IP interfaces in the industry. With the addition of ActiveCharge, operators that plan to adopt IMS can begin using the Telcordia Converged Real-Time Charging solution immediately to converge prepaid and postpaid services, delivered by the Telcordia(R) Converged Application Server, across a broad range of highly tailored service transaction types.

More information about Telcordia(R) Converged Real-Time Charging and the Telcordia(R) Maestro(TM) IMS Portfolio is available at www.telcordia.com/maestro.

About Openet Telecom
Openet Telecom is a world-leading provider of Active OSS solutions that enable network operators to maximise the profitability of their network and services. Its products, FusionWorks Mediation, FusionWorks ActiveCharge and FusionWorks ActiveRate enable network operators with diverse networks to easily implement, manage, charge for, rate and bill sophisticated services - leading to enhanced profitability and quality of service.

With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and offices in Reston VA, San Francisco, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Singapore and Sao Paulo, Openet Telecom has signed customers that include Cingular/AT&T Wireless, British Telecom, Orange Group, Telecom Italia Mobile and Verizon Wireless. (www.openet.com)

About Telcordia
Telcordia Technologies, Inc. is a leading global provider of telecommunications network software and services for IP, wireline, wireless, and cable. As the industry continuously evolves, Telcordia is focused on being the undisputed transformation partner for its customers. By delivering flexible, standards-based software solutions and consulting services that optimize complex network and business support systems, Telcordia helps customers transform their business while aggressively reducing costs and growing revenues. Telcordia is headquartered in Piscataway, N.J, with offices throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Central and Latin America. (www.telcordia.com)