Aepona, a global provider of telecoms software products and services headquartered in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has acquired Valista, a Dublin, Ireland-based provider of payment, settlement and service lifecycle management solutions to mobile and broadband operators worldwide. The acquisition, which comes into effect immediately, creates an independent vendor, operating under the Aepona brand, with a complete solution for the "Network as a Service" (NaaS) business model.

With the NaaS model, mobile and broadband operators treat their network and informational assets as marketable resources that can be made available to third party application developers, upstream service providers and enterprises.The organisations can then enhance their applications, services and business processes with Telco capabilities such as voice, location, messaging, profile, billing and so on.

The new Aepona offers Telcos an end-to-end solution for the NaaS model, including Open APIs towards core network capabilities, 3^rd party relationship management, monetization, billing mediation and settlement, and service lifecycle management. Following the acquisition, Aepona's client list is now said to include some of the world's largest mobile and broadband operators in North America, EMEA and Asia. 

"For some time now, operators have recognized the need to adopt a more collaborative approach to working with organizations such as Enterprises and web-based service providers", said Al Snyder, CEO of Aepona. "The rise in Over-the-Top services has made them realize that in order to compete effectively, they need to leverage their assets to the fullest extent possible, and this means opening up these assets towards third parties in a secure, controlled and billable manner."

"The move towards openness initially focused on the device side, but over the past year attention has shifted towards the network side", continued Snyder. "Aepona has secured several contracts with Tier 1 operators to implement their Open Network API programs, but until now we have lacked the monetization and settlement capabilities that are required for a true NaaS offering. With the acquisition of Valista, we can now offer Telcos the means to monetize their Open API initiatives, as well as offering third parties a convenient way to bill end-users for their services."

Kevin McGrath, CEO of Valista, commented: "This is a major step forward in the evolution of Valista's business. The combination with Aepona creates significant benefits for the customers of both companies, providing them with a more complete solution from a single, independent entity that has the operational scale to serve our large operator customers at a global level. In addition, the combined company's competitive position will be greatly enhanced in the emerging Telco 2.0/NaaS marketplace, as the only independent vendor capable of delivering a complete solution".

OpenTrust, a global provider of open and secure IT Ecosystems, has today announced full support for mobile authentication for smartphones.

The OpenTrust IT Trust and Security platform is now said to be fully compatible with the latest mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone. For the first time across all mobile platforms, OpenTrust Mobile says it is making trust-based authentication a reality for enterprises' employees, customers, partners and suppliers.

With the rapid rise of mobile users, smartphones are increasingly the de facto device used by employees of today's enterprises to connect to networks from any location. And, says the company, this latest development will allow OpenTrust customers to manage digital identities held on the most popular smart phones including the Apple iPhone. Mobile employees can then use their smart phones, equipped with Digital IDs, to remotely and automatically authenticate themselves to corporate networks.

OpenTrust Mobile turns smart phones into trusted devices, used by trusted users and managed using OpenTrust Digital Identities. Said to be simple to use, OpenTrust Mobile provides several ways to enrol and manage credentials and security profiles remotely on iPhones: through SMS notification. OpenTrust Mobile features profile-based configuration possibilities, making it straightforward to grant different levels of network access to different user populations.

"Phones are one of many end user platforms we are targeting," said Sherley Brothier, VP R&D, at OpenTrust. "In line with our core mission of building trusted ecosystems, it is important that our authentication offering supports all users, all networks and all devices, in particular mobile ones."

OpenTrust Mobile is currently compatible with the latest OS offering from Apple, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. Work is currently underway to also support Google Android.

Streamezzo, a provider of application software platforms for mobile, and Atos Worldline, the European arm of Atos Origin in electronic payments and transactions, have announced a partnership to provide an interactive Live TV application for the iPhone 3G.

The solution enables mobile operators and broadcasters to offer iPhone subscribers mobile TV, combining Streamezzo's technology and Atos Worldline's experience in the telecom market with large volume hosting capacity. The solution has already been implemented by a leading European mobile provider, and is distributed through Apple's App Store

The mobile TV solution combines the additional features provided by the iPhone platform in terms of user experience and navigation. The ready-to-deploy service is said to offer all the functionality of mobile TV such as access to Live TV through the embedded video player, channel grid and interactive Electronic Program Guide (EPG) in 'the most intuitive way'. The service can be easily and quickly customised to the specific requirements of both mobile operators and broadcasters in terms of customising the look-and-feel, and including additional services such as fast channel switching, video-on-demand catalogue and personal video recording including live catch-up TV functionality.

The solution is developed and operated by Atos Worldine, using Streamezzo's Rich Media technology. The same application can be re-used for other mobile platforms including Android, BlackBerry, Java, Linux, Symbian and Windows Mobile. With the cross-platform technology, mobile operators and broadcasters can extend their reach in terms of subscribers and accelerate their return on investment.

"Mobile Operators and Broadcasters are looking for a fast and effective way to deliver interactive mobile TV to the iPhone. Thanks to Streamezzo's technology, they can now offer a complete and competitive mobile TV service to their customers in less than six weeks" said Olivier Avaro, CEO of Streamezzo. 

Grégoire Sénéclauze, Telecom Business Development for Atos Worldline declared "We are very excited, as this new and innovative offer, brings together Streamezzo's excellence in mobile Rich Media, and Atos Worldline's know-how for building and operating carrier-grade services, for a state-of the art and future-proof mobile TV service".

weComm, a specialist in interactive mobile data solutions, has designed the downloadable mobile application currently being used in the BBC's "radio visualisation" trial, giving mobile audiences synchronised access to relevant images, "now playing" and artist information, news, entertainment and sports feeds – and the ability to interact directly with the programme whilst on the move.

The mobile application, which is built on weComm's wave On-Demand Mobile Application Platform, delivers live radio broadcast for radio shows involved in the trial. The trial includes The Chris Moyles Show, Zane Lowe and Switch on BBC Radio 1, Material World on BBC Radio 4 and a selection of The Hub sessions on BBC 6 Music.

weComm's wave platform uses a client-server infrastructure to deliver interactive mobile data services said to be optimized to all major mobile operating systems. The technology delivers content and applications to handsets on-demand, giving the 'richness and interactivity' of an on-device application combined with the flexibility and freshness of an online service.

Steven Tan, VP Business Solutions, weComm, said: "The ‘radio visualisation' trial is ideally mapped to weComm's push technology highlighting our ability to deliver synchronised real-time interactivity in a rich and compelling manner." 

Aeroflex has claimed a world first for its TM500 test mobile with the launch of support for the new   3GPP W-CDMA Release 8 Dual Cell HSDPA (DC-HSDPA) feature.  Building on the Aeroflex TM500's existing Release 7 HSPA+ solution, the launch of DC-HSDPA support is said to provide network infrastructure equipment manufacturers with early access to the test capabilities required to speed its development and deployment.

DC-HSDPA extends the resource utilisation and spectrum efficiency of existing W-CDMA networks by providing an alternative method to HSPA+ to increase peak data rates in the downlink to a maximum 42Mbps.  This is achieved by enabling handsets to take advantage of two adjacent 5MHz channels on the same Node B at the same time to create 10MHz downlink bandwidth.  Unlike HSPA+, DC-HSDPA delivers a peak data rate of 42Mbps without the need for MIMO spatial multiplexing and the associated, potentially costly, basestation (Node B) hardware and antenna upgrades this can entail.  As a result, DC-HSDPA facilitates improved network efficiency and load balancing through better resource allocation and frequency selectivity as well as delivering improved Quality of Service (QoS) for users in poor environments where MIMO is not necessarily an option.

"The Aeroflex TM500 is the first test mobile to support the new DC-HSDPA feature, reinforcing its market-leading position," said Tim Beard, HSPA+ Product Manager at Aeroflex Test Solutions.  "With operators continually looking for ways to improve the performance and extend the life of their existing networks at minimal cost, we expect significant take up of DC-HSDPA. Support for DC-HSDPA on the TM500 provides them with the early access to the test features they need."

XING, the European business network, has launched a new app for BlackBerry smartphones. The free download will enable more than 7 million business professionals connected over 146 million times worldwide on the platform to access their personal network directly from their mobile devices. The app keeps track of all the user's contacts; phone numbers and email addresses are always available wherever they are, and automatically updated online by the members themselves.

The "What's new in your network" feature lets mobile users stay up-to-date on all the latest developments in their personal network, as well as enabling them to keep others informed by posting status messages of their own. Private messages on XING can also be received and replied to from wherever the user happens to be.

Another feature of the free XING app is that it synchronizes specific contact data on XING with the users' address book contacts on their BlackBerry smartphone. People on the move can also call or email contacts in their network directly using the XING app.

"One of the top requests from XING members is for better mobile access to the platform. XING members want easier and faster ways to access and communicate with their XING contacts on the go, wherever they are. The new XING Blackberry application is a key milestone in enabling increasing numbers of business professionals to use a mobile version of our platform with even greater ease and convenience. We will continue to improve the application based on our members' feedback. On a personal note, I'm thrilled that we have now released in two consecutive weeks applications for two of my favorite addictions: twitter and blackberry," said Jason Goldberg, Chief Product Officer at XING AG.

The Orange Group has signed a contract with Sicap to upgrade its Sicap Device Management Center (DMC). Sicap will deliver its Device Management (DM) solution at Group level and among its MCOs.

Seven years after purchasing the first Sicap DM software to deliver over-the-air handset configuration for customer care and self-care, Orange Group now deploys the latest version of DMC. After automatic detection of devices as they attach to the network, Sicap Device Management Center (DMC) triggers PC-like updates of devices, prompting customers to download the latest versions of software and service settings.

By eliminating calls to customer care to troubleshoot configuration and usage problems, Orange gains in service take-up, brand image and call centre costs.

Ten Orange MCOs across Europe and Africa run Sicap DMC, many of them with the Automatic Device Detection feature, says Sicap. Orange Group has worked closely with Sicap to integrate data into the Sicap database, thereby covering all branded, signature, and generic handsets available as part of the Orange offer.

According to Jürgen Samuel, CEO of Sicap and Mrs.Valérie VALTON, Orange Global Account Manager at Sicap, "Our single-platform for all devices approach", i.e. a platform which supports all DM technologies (OTA, OMA DM etc.) aligns well with operator group strategies of convergence and consolidation. We are proud that Orange Group runs the Sicap Device Management Center and associated software and services". We have excellent relations with Orange Group and its MCOs across Europe, where Sicap is headquartered; and in Africa, where Sicap operates from South Africa and now also from Cote d'Ivoire".

Philippe Léonetti Device Inlife Management Department Director and Mr. Serge Llorente, Project Manager of Orange Group added: "Sicap is a long term partner of Orange Group. Their leading position in Device Management, combined with their strong knowledge of our member company networks and pan-continental device markets, have undeniably benefited the Orange Group over the years. We have achieved savings in our general public and enterprise customer care costs, while improving service usage and the customer experience in general.  As DM grows in strategic importance, our partnership has strengthened. We are confident that Sicap DM will support our drive for continuous management of mobile devices, and open up opportunities for new data services. 

Sicap DMC also supports advanced DM functionalities such as mobile application management, remote control and diagnostics, wipe and lock, and other security features. ARPU gained from marketing advanced DM services is claimed to provide a rapid return on investment and cover the configuration and troubleshooting costs associated with today's handsets, says Sicap.

x-Mobility has launched its Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA) service that provides a white-labeled MVNO service for brands wishing to enter the mobile space. As the holder of a full Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) licence on the 3UK network, x-Mobility's MVNA service is claimed to allow new entrants into the market with a quicker and more cost-effective solution than dealing directly with an operator.

The MVNA service from x-Mobility provides everything a company needs to set itself up as a new MVNO, targeting its own distinct customer base. Services include: White label branding of both the USIM and the network name on the handset, making all aspects of the service ‘branded' in the eyes of your customers; Operations Support Systems (OSS), for provisioning of services; Billing Support Services (BSS), with both wholesale & retail billing interfaces available; Customer Care services so that any issues your customers face can be resolved; and number portability, allowing you to port your customers's numbers from other networks.

"The MVNO concept is particularly well suited to developing niche propositions and, while this has benefitted consumers in some European markets, the UK mobile operators have yet to truly embrace that model," said Phil Kendall, Director – Global Wireless Practice, Strategy Analytics. "The MVNA approach is an excellent way to facilitate that step change in the market. This is especially true if services like low-cost international calls and data services, that are not traditionally associated with an MVNO, can be added to the mix."

x-Mobility works closely with 3 and has a full MVNO licence on the 3UK network. This allows x-Mobility to aggregate the service to other brands as a white-label service and x-Mobility can provide pre and post-paid voice and data services for its customers.

David Bickett, Business Development Director at 3, said: "x-Mobility has created a very compelling service which suits the excellent network that we have built in the UK. We believe that the smaller, niche MVNO players will be able to profit from the combination of 3UK's network and x-Mobility's MVNA service."

One of the companies that is taking advantage of x-Mobility's MVNA service is Uni-Tel Mobile, which has been set up to target the UK student market.

"I'm really impressed with the x-Mobility business model and really grateful of it too," said Mike Hall, the Operations Director at Uni-Tel Mobile. "Thanks to x-Mobility we've been able to get our MVNO service up and running quickly. We think that we have a very compelling offering to the student market and we're extremely excited about the possibilities."

Wayne Myers, CEO of x-Mobility, said: "This is culmination of a lot of hard work and planning, But now we have launched we're able to help even more brands that want to launch an MVNO service within 120 days and at a fraction of the cost of the traditional, direct route."

"It's great that we're able to help companies like Uni-Tel Mobile provide a new service to their customers within a few months. We hope to help many more companies launch MVNOs to service consumer segments that the mobile operators cannot reach."

x-Mobility is currently working with a number of brands that will be launching their own MVNO service shortly. Based on the volume of SIMs ordered, x-Mobility says it is one of the biggest MVNOs on the 3UK network.