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AsiaInfo to Develop Phase II Prepaid Service Management Platform For Shanghai Netcom

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AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASIA), a provider of telecom software solutions and security products and services in China, announced today it has entered into a contract with Shanghai Netcom to construct a phase II prepaid service management platform.

”Through AsiaInfo’s enhanced prepaid service management platform, Shanghai Netcom will be able to increase their prepaid service offerings and improve the quality and speed of customer services,” said Steve Zhang, President and Chief Executive Officer of AsiaInfo. ”The platform will also integrate their support functions and increase general operating efficiency.”

The phase II prepaid service management platform will allow Shanghai Netcom to provide a greater variety of prepaid services to customers and improve the management of all prepaid service data. In addition, it will connect the process management system to the integrated accounting system. It will also reduce complicated system interfaces and enhance the real-time performance and accuracy of information transfer. [Read more…]

Telecom Cost Management Survey Finds that Mid-Market Enterprises Average 2 Percent Late Payment Penalties

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As a result of inefficient processes to manage telecom expenses, late payment penalties, carrier billing errors, and inadequate visibility into spend, mid-market enterprises are forfeiting opportunities to reduce telecom expenses by an average of 3% to 10%. AberdeenGroup’s new report, ‘The Challenge in Total Telecom Cost Management’ found that mid-size enterprises must address the following issues:

– Inefficient manual processes with 64% of bills were being received in paper format.
– Late payment penalties that are 2% of telecom spend.
– Complex carrier services, contracts, and legacy billing systems produce invoices with error rates of 7% to 12%.
– Eighty percent of the respondents have no formal program to audit for contract compliance.

Telecom costs are difficult to track because they include tangible assets with decentralized inventory spread over multiple locations and intangible services. Move Add Change, Disconnect service order activity creates a moving target that enterprises must reconcile. [Read more…]

LHS Appoints Wolfgang Kroh as new CEO

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LHS, a leading provider of telecommunications and billing software, has today announced the appointment of its new CEO, Wolfgang Kroh. Previous CEO, Hartmut Lademacher, is to resume his position as Chairman of the Board.

“I was very excited when I came back to work for LHS, because of the immediate acceptance of employees and customers, the affinity I held with the company, and because I knew that it has great potential in the market place,” said Wolfgang Kroh. “The last six months have been extremely prosperous and now as CEO, I will build on that and continue to make this potential a reality.”

Kroh, whose LHS history with the company stems back to 1997, had been Senior Vice President and Managing Director for EMEA from 1997-2000. He rejoined the company as Chief Operating Officer six months ago, and brings with him a wealth of more than 25 years knowledge and experience in IT and telecommunications. [Read more…]

Filed Under: LHS

COLT Purchases cVidya Networks’ MoneyMap® for Revenue Assurance and Data Integrity

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cVidya Networks, a leader of Telecom Data Integrity and Revenue Assurance Systems, has announced that COLT, a leading European provider of business communications, has purchased cVidya Networks’ MoneyMap® as its Revenue Assurance solution for leased lines and data services. COLT will implement the MoneyMap® solution and software along with cVidya Networks’ professional services. The project will be centrally managed across COLT’s operation that spans 13 European countries.

“We are very excited that COLT has selected cVidya Networks for Revenue Assurance and Data Integrity; this deal represents another one of our ‘recent wins’ in Europe,” said Alon Aginsky, CEO of cVidya Networks. “MoneyMap® will help COLT maintain cost leadership and revenue recovery throughout their European operation, ultimately improving their customer satisfaction.”

COLT will use the revenue assurance solution to ensure that the actual revenue stream for these services matches the expected revenue stream. One of the main drivers for selecting MoneyMap® was to enhance the company’s existing manual based revenue assurance processes. [Read more…]

Amdocs Selected by TELMEX Mexican Directory Publisher ADSA

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Amdocs (NYSE: DOX – News), a provider of software and services to enable integrated customer management and the intentional customer experience(TM), and Anuncios en Directorios S.A. de C.V. (ADSA), the directory publishing subsidiary of Telefonos de Mexico S.A. de C.V. (TELMEX), has announced that ADSA chose Amdocs to deliver software and associated services to update ADSA’s online yellow pages directories to ensure a better customer experience to consumers and better business value to advertisers.

“Amdocs is already providing us with a centralized, customer-centric online infrastructure that addresses all aspects of the directory publishing process — including online yellow pages — and helps us offer a unique and intentional experience to our customers,” said Benjamin Podoswa Schwaycer, chief executive officer at ADSA.

Amdocs will be the prime systems integrator to replace ADSA’s online search engine software using ApproxiMatch online search engine as a key component of this initiative, and will also provide maintenance services to support the implementation under a six-year contract. [Read more…]

TTI Telecom Announces Special General Meeting of Shareholders

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TTI Team Telecom International Ltd. (NASDAQ: TTIL), a global supplier of Operations Support Systems (OSS) to communications service providers, has announced that it will hold a Special General Meeting of Shareholders on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. Israel time, at the offices of the Company, located at 7 Martin Gehl Street, Kiryat Aryeh, Petach Tikva, Israel. [Read more…]

Cerillion Implements Broadband Billing Solution for Bulldog Communications

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Convergent Billing specialist, Cerillion Technologies, has announced the successful implementation of the Cerillion CRM and Billing solution for Bulldog Communications Ltd, a subsidiary of Cable and Wireless in the UK. Cerillion have implemented their Revenue Manager, CRM Plus, Mediator and Information Manager products to support Bulldog’s VoIP and metered broadband services business, and performed the migration of the existing customer base to the new system. [Read more…]

BSG Clearing Solutions Acquires Business Unit From VoiceLog

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BSG Clearing Solutions North America, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Billing Services Group Limited (AIM: BILL), a leading clearing and settlement, payment and financial risk management solutions group, has announced the acquisition of VoiceLog, LLC’s third party verification (TPV) business. VoiceLog is the world’s leading provider of third party verification services. The all-cash deal values VoiceLog at US$15.63M and will be financed from the existing resources and facilities of the Group. The transaction closed on Friday 30th of June. [Read more…]

Global Technology Transfer Group Announces Availability of Two Telecommunications Patent Portfolios

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Global Technology Transfer Group, Inc., (GTT) is has recently announced the availability of two key telecommunications patent portfolios. The first portfolio focuses on subscriber services technologies that are currently deployed in the wireless communications industry. This portfolio is specifically applicable to telecommunication service providers on a system level. The Subscriber Services Portfolio includes technologies such as transaction-based billing, short messaging services (SMS), multi-functional subscriber identity modules (SIMs), and changing service profiles based on geo-location capabilities.

The second portfolio focuses on Mobile Radio Networks and includes technologies such as traffic density estimation, cellular handover optimization and short-range communications. [Read more…]

Rogers Communications Selects Amdocs CRM

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Amdocs (NYSE: DOX – News), a leading provider of software and services to enable integrated customer management and the intentional customer experience(TM), and Rogers Communications, a diversified Canadian communications and media company today announced that Rogers will implement Amdocs CRM across cable, wireless and telecom lines of business. This implementation is part of Rogers’ integrated customer management (ICM) strategy rollout which is designed to provide a consistent customer experience to its more than 10 million subscribers.

“Rogers recognizes that it is important to deliver a consistent and rewarding experience across all channels,” said Stephen Graham, chief marketing officer at Rogers Communications Inc. “After an extensive review of potential solutions, Amdocs was the natural choice to help us achieve this goal. The company understands our challenges and has the proven solutions we need to address them.”

Customers receive a variety of communications services from Rogers, including cable TV, high-speed Internet, wireline and wireless. Rogers strives to ensure a consistent customer experience across all those services. Providing a single view of the customer is part of an ICM strategy, which helps achieve that. ICM provides a framework to organize a company’s infrastructure and resources around customer needs and the customer experience. [Read more…]

Axiom Systems Partners With TierOne OSS Technologies To Deliver Complete Service Fulfillment Solution

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Axiom Systems, a leader in Service Fulfilment software for communications service providers, has announced a strategic partnership with a leading North American Operations Support System (OSS) consultancy and systems integrator, TierOne OSS Technologies. The partnership will result in the seamless integration of AXIOSS with TierOne™ enSEMBLE, to create the industry’s first integrated Service Fulfillment solution to simultaneously address provisioning and activation requirements across Layer 1 (Optical, Photonic), Layer 2 (Carrier Ethernet, DSL, Broadband) and Layer 3 (VoIP, IPTV) networks.

“Service Providers are under real pressure to address the demands that new converged services are placing on their underlying transport network infrastructure and OSS systems,” said Brad Niven, Axiom System’s Regional Director for the Americas.

AXIOSS is a unique component-based platform that enables Service Provider’s to design, create and deliver next generation services such as IPTV and VoIP over agnostic broadband and IP networks. TierOneâ„¢ enSEMBLE is the telecommunications industry’s leading integrated solution suite for comprehensive transport network management supporting last-gen, this-gen and next-generation services. [Read more…]

Convergys Continues Expansion in Asia Pacific Region

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Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in providing customer care, human resources, and billing services, today announced the continued expansion of its Human Resources Business Process Outsourcing (HR BPO) business in the Asia Pacific region.

“Asia Pacific has garnered a strong reputation as an offshoring location of choice, and having these service centers is an important step in the expansion of Convergys’ presence in this rapidly growing market,” said Nalin Singh, Vice President and Managing Director of Asia Pacific Operations for Convergys. “As part of our strategic expansion efforts, we operate in high-tech locations with a highly skilled talent pool to grow our client base and meet the needs of our clients. Convergys is committed to the Asia Pacific region and we are leveraging the local expertise of our service centers to benefit our clients worldwide.”

Convergys has added to its global HR BPO capacity by opening new or expanding existing service centers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangalore, India; Dalian, China; and Singapore. These service centers provide high quality, world-class HR business process outsourcing (BPO) services to more than 150 global and regional Convergys clients. [Read more…]

Berg Insight Launches New Media Site

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Berg Insight has launched a new media site at www.lbsinsight.com. This new site covers the worldwide location-based services market. The editorial team is drawn from the leading Nordic wireless analyst firm Berg Insight.

The LBS Insight web site, with its continuous news feed and links to leaders in the LBS marketplace, will keep the visitors up to date and plugged in. [Read more…]

Magyar Telekom and Allround Win Best Revenue Assurance Project at World Billing Awards

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The joint application of Magyar Telekom’s T-Com business line and Allround has won the World Billing Awards 2006 in the Best Revenue Assurance/Management Project category. The winners have been announced at the Billing and Information Management Systems 2006 Gala Dinner in London, on 8th June 2006.

“We are delighted to acknowledge the T-Com / Magyar Telekom / Allround project as winner in the ‘Best Revenue Assurance / Revenue Management’ category. All of us were impressed by the proactive approach based on stability testing that was adopted, and also by the honesty demonstrated in both relationships and reporting structures that is clearly important for real long term benefits to accrue.” said Hugh Roberts, Chairman of the Awards Judging Panel and Consultant Director for IIR’s BSS/OSS and RM events.

László Harsányi, Director at Billing and CRM Directorate of T-Com Wireline Services of Magyar Telekom stated: “it is an honour that the T-Com / Magyar Telekom / Allround project won the prestigious World Billing Awards. This achievement acknowledges the innovative ideas and the strong co-operation between the two companies to customize and implement this new methodology.” [Read more…]

ACE*COMM Signs Parent Patrol Contract with Tier One North American Carrier

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ACE*COMM Corporation (NASDAQ:ACEC), a provider of advanced OSS, value-added services, and network business intelligence solutions, today announced it has signed its first customer in North America for the deployment of its industry-leading Parent Patrol(TM) wireless access control application. The customer, an undisclosed Tier One North American service provider, is expected to commence rollout for the new service in one of its regional divisions in the third quarter of 2006.

“Selling dynamic, value-added service applications like Parent Patrol(TM) into the Tier-1 customer space is a breakthrough achievement for ACE*COMM and a positive indicator of the market potential for this class of product,” said George Jimenez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ACE*COMM.

Parent Patrol(TM) gives parents the ability to supervise their children’s use of mobile phones. Parents use an intuitive web-based interface to the service provider’s network, through which they set allowance limits on parameters such as time of day, numbers called or received, minutes used, and services accessed. [Read more…]

Veramark Signs Managed Services Contract with Beverage Industry Provider

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Veramark Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB: VERA) has announced the signing of a new 3-year managed services contract with a large beverage and bottling company. Veramark’s ASP (Application Service Provider) model allows its customers easy web browser access to the full functionality of the VeraSMART suite of applications including Call Accounting, Allocation, Invoice Management, Online Directory, and Work Order; without the need to install, host, and maintain a premise-based solution. The client will utilize Veramark’s services primarily for security reporting within their facilities.

Veramark president and CEO David Mazzella said, “For companies that recognize the benefits of telemanagement solutions, but would rather not manage a system themselves, Veramark’s Managed Services offers application hosting in a variety of arrangements from full-service to Applications Service Provider (ASP) models. We’re pleased to provide our new client with solely dedicated and optimized servers maintained in a secure environment; end-to-end Web access; industry-leading service delivery and dedicated account support; and knowledgeable technical support.”

The client’s security reporting activities will be supported by VeraSMART’s Call Accounting module to track and document communication between management and personnel. The service will be used initially to manage 6,000 extensions at seven sites, with expansion to additional sites expected. [Read more…]

Convergys Introduces New Software Testing Solutions That Shortens Lifecycle for Price Plans at SunCom Wireless

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A new suite of software testing solutions from Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) combining consulting services with automated testing software is now available to businesses seeking to strengthen their software testing capabilities. Convergys Testing Solutions combine professional services offerings with Convergys Easy Test, an automated software application testing tool. Businesses using Convergys Testing Solutions can enhance the quality of their products and services by thoroughly testing and verifying changes to mission-critical systems such as billing and customer care.

“Reducing the time and cost of introducing new price plans to market, while improving plan accuracy with the help of Convergys Easy Test, helps us deliver on our strategy to be a leading value-priced wireless carrier,” said Emilio Echave, senior vice president of operations for SunCom Wireless.

Under a contract signed recently with Convergys, SunCom Wireless is using Convergys Testing Solutions to bring complex voice and data pricing plans to market quickly. Convergys is providing testing consulting services in the form of software configuration, customization, project management, and system testing. [Read more…]

etisalat’s Network Transformation Begins with Telcordia Network Engineer

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Telcordia (www.telcordia.com) has announced that the UAE’s Emirates Telecommunications orporation- etisalat- is the first to deploy the latest release of Telcordia(R) Network Engineer to drive operational efficiencies and lower total cost of ownership, supporting its goal of aggressively deploying new technologies and services to its customers in the region. This highly sophisticated, award-winning solution is helping etisalat optimize its fibre network in order to quickly roll-out services, such as IPTV, and streamline its operations with Network Engineer’s automated processes.

“etisalat is continually working to offer new and exciting products and services to our customers, and Telcordia has always delivered first-rate, state-of-the-art solutions that help us deal with today’s operational challenges with an eye on tomorrow’s network,” said Nasser Salim, General Manager- Converged Networks, etisalat. “The evolution of Telcordia’s Network Engineer supports our overall OSS transformation plan, optimizing our network and helping us continue to provide leading edge services in the Middle East.”

etisalat, the incumbent service provider in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been utilizing Telcordia(R) Network Engineer for several years and recognized that with network convergence a reality, now was the critical time to reap the benefits that the enhanced solution provides. Network Engineer, an end-to-end geospatial network planning and engineering solution for the management of telecommunications networks, helps to simplify network operations, increase customer satisfaction and paves the way for the creation and deployment of new revenue generating advanced services. [Read more…]

Subex Completes Merger of Azure Solutions

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Subex Systems Limited, a Bangalore-headquartered telecom software product company and UK-headquartered Azure Solutions Limited today announced the completion of their previously announced merger. The new entity is called Subex Azure Limited and it enjoys a global leadership position in telecom fraud management and revenue assurance. [Read more…]

Coastal Technologies Group Announces WorkFlow Pro Business Automation Tool

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Coastal Technologies Group Inc. (CTGi), a leader in call detail processing, back-office accounting process and OSS support for the telecommunications industry, has introduced its WorkFlow Proâ„¢, a business process automation (BPA) tool that enables carriers to improve order processing and back-office telecom management.

“The CMP and OSS Connect suites have always given telecom carriers and service providers a single source for managing the fixed and variable costs of operating a network,” said Richard Kane, president and CEO for Coastal Technologies Group. “By introducing WorkFlow Pro, and enabling CMP, OSS Connect and WorkFlow Pro to work together seamlessly, we can now give service providers an automatic way of detecting and addressing network anomalies, such as phantom traffic or fraud, in a matter of hours as opposed to weeks or months. We have taken what used to be a difficult manual process, and given service providers a seamless way to reduce their service order error rate, mitigate fraud and capture unaccounted for revenue.”

CTGi has also added enhanced capabilities to its current ASP Call Management Program (CMP) and OSS Connect product lines in order to provide more detailed network snapshots and call management. Ultimately, these new tools and capabilities give service providers a 360-degree view of their network and the costs associated with provisioning, delivering and managing valuable triple play services easier, faster and more cost effectively. [Read more…]