LogicaCMG today announces that it has formally joined Bridge Mobile Alliance as one of its technology associate members under the alliance’s associate membership scheme. The scheme was initiated by Bridge Mobile to act as an extension of the alliance membership structure to include major global players with technology leadership across the mobile industry value chain, such as handsets, network and platform solutions, and SIM card technologies. The purpose is to promote knowledge exchange and joint collaboration between mobile operators and technology solutions providers across the mobile service development value chain – so as to develop next-generation mobile technologies that are customised for the Asia Pacific mobile markets.

The alliance comprises eight top-tier mobile operators – Airtel (India), CSL (Hong Kong), Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), SingTel Optus (Australia), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia), serving over 70 million subscribers.

By joining the alliance as a technology associate member, LogicaCMG will have access to regular planning and dialogue sessions, will actively contribute and exchange ideas in order to generate collaborative opportunities with Bridge Mobile’s other technology members such as Axalto, Gemplus, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Nokia, QUALCOMM and ZTE. The sessions will support a service incubation programme which aims to enable both member operators and technology associate members to test and co-develop solution models for next-generation mobile technologies and services in Asia Pacific.

“With the extension of the alliance community, member operators will be able to partner with global technology players to pioneer the development of Asian-centric mobile technologies and services. This will lead to the creation of more seamless and innovative mobile services for our 70 million subscribers across Asia Pacific,” said Dr. Patrick Sim, CEO of Bridge Mobile. “I am pleased to welcome LogicaCMG to this alliance, and look forward to tapping into its expertise in rolling out mobile solutions customised to the Asia Pacific mobile markets.”

Boudewijn Pesch, managing director, LogicaCMG global telecoms in Asia added: “The Bridge Mobile Alliance provides the eight member operators a universal platform to seamlessly integrate and deploy innovative mobile offerings. We recognise the need for operators to identify and secure new revenue streams, and are excited at the prospect of supporting these alliance members with mobile applications and systems integration expertise to make innovative solutions a reality.”

LogicaCMG was previously selected to set up part of Bridge Mobile’s core infrastructure with a Common Access Gateway and a Wholesale Billing and Settlement System, as well as enabling the initial Bridge Prepaid service. Bridge Prepaid for the first time enables the alliance member operators’ pre-paid subscribers to conveniently and quickly top-up their pre-paid account while roaming in any of the member countries.

Recently LogicaCMG had provided its systems integration expertise to support Bridge Mobile’s roll-out of the World Cyber Games (WCG) Mobile Asian Championship.

Atos Origin, an international IT services company, and CDRator, a provider of an integrated Business Support System (BSS) for telecom companies, have partnered to offer hosted BSS services to telecoms service providers. The global partnership means that Atos Origin will offer CDRator’s integrated BSS – an all-in-one package for billing, customer care and business management – as a hosted service to its clients and prospects, particularly those in the emerging Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) market.

Atos Origin and CDRator have collaborated together before, most recently on a Netherlands-based project for KPN Mobile – Simyo* – launched in September to the Dutch market. Simyo is KPN’s mobile brand with a ‘no nonsense’ concept aimed at people that would like to call and SMS at low tariffs without any obligations of subscriptions fee. Atos Origin, as KPN’s preferred IT partner, managed the complete IT project for which it chose CDRator’s hosted solution. Atos Origin’s services included: consulting services, business analysis and process modeling, design and integration of IT architecture and process architecture.

Cees de Jong, Senior Vice President, Global Telecom Market at Atos Origin said: “The Simyo project showed us the potential of a partnership with CDRator. Simyo was implemented in record time of three months thanks to the effective work of flexible CDRator and Atos Origin team members, to the complete satisfaction of KPN Mobile. CDRator is an innovative organization with an excellent track record in the European MVNO industry and together we will offer our existing and new customers a competitive proposition.”

Jesper Philipp, CEO of CDRator, concluded: “We believe Atos Origin has excellent in-depth knowledge of the European telecoms market and its consult-build-operate approach and geographical reach complements our specialist knowledge of this market. We feel that this partnership will prove to be highly productive and reinforces our market presence in the MVNO and Service Provider domain. MVNO’s that are already using the solution are among others Debitel, EasyMobile and Telmore.”

Atos Origin has a proven record of over 20 years of accomplishment and experience in the Telecoms sector and has the capacity, skills, and capability to provide global services. Atos Origin delivers reliable end-to-end solutions and has a customer base covering major telecom operators in Europe such as France Telecom, KPN, Vodafone, and Telecom Italia. The company’s annual revenue in the telecom industry is close to EUR 1 billion.

Psytechnics, the global leader in voice and video quality assessment software for the telecoms industry, has appointed Nav Chander as director of product management.

In his role, Chander will be responsible for driving the product requirements and market growth for the company’s voice and video quality assessment tools in VoIP, IPTV, and mobile applications as well as ensuring that Psytechnics continues to lead the test and measurement industry for the telecoms market.

For the past 20 years, Chander worked in a variety of senior product management and marketing positions at Motorola, 3Com, Alcatel/Newbridge Networks and SHL Systemhouse. His innovations include the industry’s first frame relay access products for VoIP, the first multiservice router while at Motorola Codex and the first layer 3 switching product while at 3Com.

“I am eager to work with the telecom industry’s top minds and collaborate on a set of exciting and important technologies that will shape the quality of video and voice communications in the future,” said Chander. “Psytechnics’ innovation stems from delivering not only what each customer needs now but also predicting what the customer will experience with the new mobile and triple play services. I look forward to working with the inventive team whose foresight has created the industry standard.”

“Nav Chander is a tremendous asset to Psytechnics,” said CTO Dr. Mike Hollier. “We are fortunate to have someone of his caliber leading our marketing efforts. His experience will ensure that Psytechnics continues to create industry leading technology in the future. Mr. Chander will be instrumental in Psytechnics’ continued success as the company continues to grow.”

appliedlogx, a leading provider of communication infrastructure engineering, procurement and installation services to the telecommunications industry, has launched Virtual Operations Services (VOS), a web-based operations support platform designed to help telecommunications, cable and VoIP service providers deliver comprehensive services to the residential and business marketplace.

“Installation services have primarily been delivered by the internal staff of service providers due to operational and logistical challenges,” says Rob Cash, CEO, appliedlogx (www.appliedlogx.com). “VOS overcomes those challenges through a robust, web-enabled application that manages the entire process, from initial order processing to equipment ordering and tracking through installation and turn-up to ongoing customer service.”

Because traditional last-mile support typically required a physical presence to handle installation, trouble-shooting and ongoing customer service, outsourced installation providers were limited by their geographic scope. However, today’s advanced telecommunication technologies mean installation and repairs can often be handled remotely. VOS manages that process and, when on-site work is required, provides immediate access to a nationwide network of highly qualified technicians.

The VOS core engine is comprised of four key components:

• Order Management, a web-based ticketing program that creates service orders, provides auto-cost calculations and instant dispatch visibility, as well as manages in-process orders. The Order Management tool tracks items serviced and parts/labor used on an order, tracks exchanges for customer inventory and manages quality control.
• Equipment Fulfillment, which provides online ordering capabilities, order tracking, multiple location tracking and purchase order status, and manages existing vendor relationships. The Equipment tool records automatic transfer per location, tracks serial numbers and MAC addresses, tracks login and passwords and delivery assemblies and kits.
• Installation/Deployment, which captures all user information, manages parent-child relationships, provides quick information for deployment and manages a delivery flow based on FOC dates and CPE delivery. Through the Installation tool, users can quickly dispatch experienced technicians who possess all the current certifications and who have committed to following the appliedlogx Scorecard System, which measures and monitors each process and provides the feedback that is essential to successes.
• Customer Service, which provides Tier One and Tier Two customer support, including the ability to conduct remote configurations and remotely capture call information on demand for analysis and repair. The Customer Service module also manages billing and finance, inside sales and quality control.

VOS installation service offers flat rate pricing to its customers – a telecommunication industry first. It also provides a knowledge base to improve troubleshooting and decrease truck rolls. VOS service components can be purchased individually or as a complete operations platform.

“VOS users benefit from increased efficiency in responding to customer issues as well as the quality of service derived from our nationwide coverage ability,” says Cash. “It’s a turnkey solution for any traditional and non-traditional telecommunication service provider wishing to reduce operating costs, increase geographic reach and enhance the quality of their customer service.”

Verso Technologies, Inc. VRSO(Nasdaq: VRSO), a leading provider of packet based solutions, announced today that Splendor Telecom, an international carrier, has selected the Verso I-Master(R) solution to expand its suite of local and wholesale services in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa (EMEA) regions.

Splendor will utilize the Verso solution to strengthen its position in the EMEA wholesale pre-paid market in addition offering to VoIP services. Splendor chose the I-Master system after considering several incumbent products, as Verso’s robust solution offered the highest level of stability and reliability, while streamlining revenue and billing issues.

Verso’s I-Master solution provides a superior feature and services platform for service providers seeking to deliver voice and data services that increase revenues and promote customer loyalty, without sacrificing the revenue assurance of the pre-paid model. With a unique and intuitive interface, the Verso solution allows service providers such as Splendor to easily manage complex rating schemes required in a dynamic market like the EMEA Region. The I-Master solution uses an Oracle database running on the Solaris operating system to deliver maximum performance and reliability to service provider networks.

“The I-Master platform’s unique features and services, as well as its ability to preserve the revenue assurance model, were key in Splendor’s selection,” said Monty Bannerman, chief executive officer, Verso Technologies. “Splendor recognized a unique opportunity to deploy in-demand services that will facilitate greater market share,” added Bannerman. “The Middle East is a key emerging market for Verso that will increasingly require complete and bundled solutions.”

“The I-Master solution will streamline our sales process by providing a single price solution, which is particularly important as we work across many countries and currencies,” said Omar Onsi chairman and chief executive officer, Splendor Telecom. “In addition, the solution offers a vast variety of services within the same architecture.”

Telcordia Technologies, Inc. continues to lead the transformation of the telecommunications industry by delivering software innovations that meet carrier demands in a dynamic business environment. The company today announced that Hydro One Telecom Inc., a provider of broadband telecommunications services to carriers, large enterprises and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), has selected Discovery, a new module of Telcordia(R) Granite Inventory, to perform network asset discovery and reconciliation to their existing Granite Inventory database.

“Our goal is to have a synchronized database that matches the equipment as it is actually deployed in our network. Deploying the new Discovery Module in our Telcordia Granite Inventory system will provide an immediate payback by enabling us to fulfill new services faster and with greater accuracy,” said Aaron Cheng, Director of IT Systems, Hydro One Telecom. “We looked at several options and Granite was a clear solution that offered truly integrated Discovery and reconciliation. With this new functionality plus Granite Inventory’s open and flexible architecture, complex IP services are even easier to design and implement.”

Hydro One Telecom is an innovative carrier that currently offers Transparent LAN, Private Line, and Internet Transit Services to its customers. Discovery will “talk” to the IP, and SONET networks that provide the foundation for these services by supporting 12 different types of equipment provided by five different vendors. In addition, Granite Inventory with Discovery will help Hydro One Telecom easily scale to accommodate over 1,000 network devices.

“The complexity of today’s sophisticated telecom networks makes it increasingly difficult for carriers to manage and reconcile network assets and drive revenue through the quick and accurate turn-up of new services,” said Don Wadas, Corporate Vice President of Sales, Telcordia. “The addition of Discovery in Granite Inventory was inspired by the need for absolute and real-time accuracy of the inventory in order for carriers such as Hydro One Telecom to successfully provision advanced IP services and ensure a superior customer experience, exceptional flow through, and expeditious order to cash process.”

Telcordia Granite Inventory is an award-winning, fully J2EE compliant solution that provides an open and flexible data model that stores the entire multi-vendor, multi-technology network image of sites, equipment, configurations & services, and automates service & network provisioning. The Discovery module (Discovery), now available as an integral component of the Telcordia(R) Granite Inventory system, provides discovery with reconciliation to the Granite Inventory database for next generation technologies and services, including optical, SONET/SDH, ATM, Frame Relay, DSL, Ethernet, IP, 3G, GPRS, MPLS, GSM, UMTS, CDMA, and WCDMA.

Discovery sits on the Granite application framework (GAF), providing a tight integration of the discovery software with the entire Granite Inventory product suite. This allows customers to deploy the discovery capability without paying an up-front “integration tax”. In contrast, other vendor solutions require costly and time-consuming development work before launch, thus indefinitely extending ROI and payback periods. Telcordia Granite Inventory has proven performance and production ready credentials in Tier 1 operators around the world. More information on Telcordia Granite Inventory and other Telcordia solutions can be found on the web at www.telcordia.com.

Comverse Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMVT) today announced that Comverse Inc. completed its acquisition of the GSS division and certain related assets of CSG Systems International, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGS), for approximately $249 million in cash, subject to certain post closing adjustments. The combination of GSS, a leader in software-based billing solutions, with Comverse’s Real-Time Billing group is expected to expand significantly Comverse’s addressable market, and enhance its leadership position in the emerging converged billing market, serving wireless, wireline, cable, satellite, and Internet-based service providers.

GSS brings to Comverse a broad suite of software-based billing solutions, supporting the voice, data, video, and e-commerce offerings of approximately 150 service providers, including wireless, wireline, cable, satellite, and Internet-based companies. GSS customers include, among others, Bharti, British Sky Broadcasting, BSNL, BT, China Telecom, eBay, France Telecom, O2, Telecom Italia and certain Vodafone entities.

Kobi Alexander, Chairman and CEO of Comverse Technology, said, “We believe the emerging converged billing market is approaching an inflection point, and that a significant growth opportunity is at hand. Converged billing is expected to be among the fast growing, and ultimately one of the largest, segments of the overall billing market. This combination is projected to enhance our leadership position as a supplier of converged billing solutions, and to open up cross-selling growth opportunities for data, messaging, content, and billing solutions into our respective customer bases.”

Zeev Bregman, CEO of Comverse, the company’s network systems unit, said, “GSS complements our product portfolio, technology, customer footprint, and strategic direction. Most service providers today rely on disparate solutions for billing, including highly customized, inflexible systems serving specific customer and application segments, including prepaid, post-paid, fixed, and wireless. As services and networks converge, so too will billing solutions, addressing the different types of convergence, such as prepaid/post-paid, fixed/mobile, and data/voice. We believe that flexible, software-centric product modules, such as those provided by GSS and Comverse, are best suited to meet the needs of service providers going forward. In addition, we believe service providers will appreciate the advantages of having both value-added services and billing solutions provided by the same supplier. The advantages include faster time-to-market for new services, greater flexibility in service segmentation, modification, and targeted marketing campaigns, and lower total cost of ownership. This growth-driven initiative is expected to position Comverse for long-term leadership in the emerging and expanding converged billing market, expand our customer base and scale, enhance the leadership position of both GSS and Comverse in their respective domains, and introduce new cross-selling growth opportunities into both customer bases.”

The combination of GSS and Comverse’s Real-Time Billing group is expected to result in the creation of a leading supplier of converged billing solutions, and one of the leading overall suppliers of billing solutions for wireless and fixed service providers.

Emblaze Ltd (“Emblaze or “the Group”) (LSE:BLZ) announces that its Group company, Adamind Ltd (“Adamind” or “the Company”) (LSE:ADA), a leading global supplier of media adaptation software in the Mobile Messaging (MMS), Content and Convergence Services markets, together with LogicaCMG and Optus, a multi-million dollar contract for the deployment of a world-first end-to-end content management solution.

Optus, a leading telecommunications operator in Australia, has deployed a state-of-the-art content management solution that includes search, digital rights management (DRM) and transcoding.

LogicaCMG has been appointed the prime contractor of this new solution, delivering solution design, project management, software implementation, systems integration, migration, and ongoing support for a consortium of global partners.

Adamind’s MediaSpire software which sits at the heart of LogicaCMG’s MMSC will be adapting all content to be delivered to any handset within Australia.

Allen Lew, Managing Director Optus Consumer said, “With the launch of 3G this year, we see content as strategically important to our mobile business. The solution LogicaCMG has designed will allow us to launch some very exciting services.”

LogicaCMG’s extensive industry expertise made it an ideal supplier for Optus. Its systems deliver two out of every three text messages and its messaging and billing solutions are deployed by 300 of the world’s top operators in over 130 countries.

LogicaCMG’s end-to-end service works with clients to design robust business models and service infrastructures, harnessing global experience as a leading systems integrator. LogicaCMG’s innovations have been helping to make and shape the global telecoms market for more than 30 years. Having deployed the world’s first and only fully integrated 3G IP-based messaging solution and migrated more than 50 operators to an IP-based messaging environment, LogicaCMG’s expertise enables operators to assure innovation in Next Generation telecoms.