Uses Netcool suite for next-generation sevrvices

Micromuse, the leading provider of realtime business and service assurance software, today announced that Swisscom
Mobile is using the Netcool suite as the core management solution for its entire GSM and GPRS network infrastructure. Swisscom Mobile owns approximately 66% of the wireless market share in Switzerland and employs approximately 2,500 people. It is a strategic partner of the Vodafone Group, which holds a 25% stake in the company.

Prior to deploying the Netcool suite, Swisscom Mobile was using a variety of tools to manage its different networks, sub networks and value-added service delivery infrastructure. In order to manage its rapidly evolving infrastructure and requirements to integrate with emerging networks such as
UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), Swisscom Mobile required a new consolidation tool.

Micromuse’s Netcool solution for wireless management was selected because it deploys rapidly and easily integrates with existing and emerging wireless infrastructure components, services and applications. Netcool software collects, filters, classifies and visualises status information from throughout Swisscom Mobile’s radio network and its infrastructure in
realtime. Netcool also provides interfaces to Swisscom Mobile’s value-added services and Operation Management Center (OMC) infrastructure.

Swisscom Mobile’s alarm management system was designed and delivered by Sun Microsystems, a Micromuse global resale partner.

“Wireless service providers are facing the considerable challenge of maximising revenue from new, complex services within tight budget constraints,” said Richard Lowe, Micromuse’s senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East & Africa. “Throughout the world, Micromuse is the vendor of choice for next-generation service providers who demand the
ability to offer continuous uptime while maintaining profitable margins. Micromuse’s Netcool solutions deploy quickly to provide a single view across the various devices and applications in the infrastructure to help minimise the time it takes to deliver a return, while maximising the investment in existing management tools.”

External Links

Micromuse
Swisscom Mobile

Tomorrow, 10 March, in conjunction with its 3G launch, TeliaSonera Sweden will be reducing the price of mobile Internet for both private and corporate customers.
This means lower prices for sending and receiving texts, images, and e-mail over the mobile network. At the same time, new figures show that use of mobile Internet and data services is strongly increasing. During the last quarter of 2003, data traffic on TeliaSonera´s mobile network in Sweden doubled by comparison with the previous year.

The price reduction for GPRS, which applies to both private and corporate mobile subscriptions, varies between 40 and 55 percent depending on choice of subscription. After the reduction, it will cost between SEK 0.03 and 0.08 to send and receive an e-mail from a phone or computer. A three-page text will cost between SEK 0.22 and 0.60.

“When we launched Telia Go in June 2003, we wanted to make it simpler for customers to access and use mobile Internet services. It’s clear to us now that customers are starting to use their phones for things other than calls. So we’re further reducing prices to enable even more people to get news or send and receive e-mail via their mobile phone,” says Marie Ehrling, President of TeliaSonera Sweden.

New figures show use of mobile Internet and data services on TeliaSonera’s mobile network in Sweden to be strongly increasing. During the fourth quarter of 2003, data traffic doubled by comparison to the previous year. Today, around 800,000 of TeliaSonera Sweden’s private customers have a GPRS phone, and there are plenty of indicators for a break with the trend and a new pattern of use. Through its price reductions, TeliaSonera Sweden wants to enable more customers to use these services.

MMS is one explanation for network traffic increasing. In total, TeliaSonera Sweden´s customers sent just over 2.3 million MMS messages during 2003.

External Links

TeliaSonera

Addresses complexities of charging for next generation network services

Am-Beo, a global leader in rating, charging and revenue settlement software solutions, today announced the availability of nCharge, the first of three planned product announcements to be made in the first-half of 2004. This new suite of products will align Am-Beo’s technology and SI partner delivery capabilities to solving existing and future business problems in a rapidly changing data marketplace.
 
nCharge is an advanced solution for the identification, control, rating and charging of network services for both content providers and network operators. nCharge is designed to address the complexities of charging for next generation communication services and provides complex rating, real-time credit control and multiple balance management to enable the generation of additional revenue from new and innovative network services requiring reduced time to market and improved financial margin management.
 
“nCharge represents a ‘Best of Breed’ solution which will enable carriers to implement, deliver and charge for next generation services driving service revenue and growing data services ARPU,” according to Paul Hughes, Director of Billing and Payment Application Strategies, Yankee Group. “Am-Beo is well positioned at the fore-front of multi-service delivery and is a leader in the area of transaction service charging, thanks to its broad vertical market product capabilities.”
 
nCharge is the product from AM-BEO’s new portfolio focused on advanced rating, charging and revenue settlements. Built on its proven and evolving technologies, nCharge has already been deployed in a major European content aggregator, who delivers millions of content items daily with real-time account management for account confirmation, credit checking and balance update through a broad number of network operators across Europe.
 
“Our goal for 2004 is to align Am-Beo’s operations and product portfolio to deliver solutions that enable our customers to accelerate the delivery of high margin service revenue,” stated Mike Murphy, Am-Beo CEO. “Within our new product portfolio of rating, charging and settlement we have a solid set of capabilities built on the latest proven technologies with multiple customer references. As the first release of this portfolio, nCharge represents a new direction for AM-BEO, a focused solution with the flexible and adaptability to deliver real returns in short timeframes.”
 
nCharge uses standard and proven technologies such as J2EE and CORBA, to ensure a stable and robust infrastructure capable of supporting the throughput and scalability required in Tier 1 software and data throughput implementations. nCharge runs on standard operating environments of UNIX and Windows , using the proven Oracle database. OSA / Parlay compliance is delivered with support for both the Charging and Account Management SCS. These services enable session-based charging for applications running on a OSA / Parlay SDP.

External Links

Am-Beo

Westminster City Council to link network of hotspots

The Council is set to revolutionise the way it does business through the use of  wireless technology. A pilot in Soho will lead to Westminster becoming a place where businesses and residents can benefit from leading-edge technology, delivering a new standard of service across the City. From Soho, the council plans to extend the wireless scheme to create wireless ‘hotspots’ across Westminster, and then link these to form a City-wide network.

The pilot currently allows CCTV cameras and noise monitoring equipment to be operated over a wireless network, meaning that the system is flexible enough to respond to new outbreaks of criminal activity and new cameras and equipment can be installed at extremely short notice and very low cost – but the potential of the project goes much further. Already, the pilot allows council officers to link to the council’s network from the street, meaning that they can resolve problems and access information immediately. The technology could soon be applied to the entire range of council services, at a fraction of the  sual cost and offering the most flexible public services of any local authority.

The pilot scheme in Soho is being supported by a group of global leaders in the field of information technology, including Intel, Cisco Systems and Telindus. These firms are lending their latest technology to the project and helping facilitate The Wireless City. Intel has worked closely with the Council in an advisory capacity on the definition, development and roll-out of this pioneering initiative.

Cllr Simon Milton, Leader of Westminster Council, said: “The concept of the Wireless City is potentially one of the most exciting developments in Westminster’s history. It will allow us to offer opportunity to our residents through community education schemes on our housing estates and integrated social service provision across the city. We will be better able to reduce the threat and the fear of crime through a flexible approach to community safety, cleansing and CCTV – reacting to events and developments as they happen. It will also help us maintain low taxes through the savings that the scheme can offer.

“The pilot scheme is already delivering benefits to the Council and the police in our  fight against drug crime in central London. Arrests have already been made. As we continue to prove the scheme and roll it out to communities across the City we can share real-time information with all our officers, with other public service providers and with our residents and businesses. Westminster is set to become a community united by cutting edge technology and sharing in the benefits of progress.”

Andrew Allison, Director of Mobility, Intel UK and Ireland, commented: “Intel is delighted to have been involved from the start in this ambitious project to pioneer the adoption of mobile technology to create one of the world’s most advanced wireless cities. With the launch of Intel Centrino mobile technology last year, Intel has been instrumental in the acceleration of hotspot deployment across the world, creating great freedom and flexibility for business people to keep in touch with customers without having to be in the office. By sharing this business and technology expertise with the council, we have helped Westminster define the initiative, speed its implementation and maximise return on investment.  We are very excited by the vision of Westminster; it’s a vision of e-government at its best.”

Simon Culmer, operation director for Public Sector, Cisco Systems UK & Ireland, said: “Cisco was delighted to have an opportunity to collaborate with Westminster City Council on this project and our joint efforts have shown the potential of what secure wireless technology can deliver. This work has provided the foundation for a very exciting project that has fundamental implications for public service delivery and city security for Westminster, and more broadly across London. We look forward to working closely with Westminster City Council to help fully realise this potential over the coming months.”

Mark Bouldin, Telindus Surveillance Solutions Manager, said:
“Telindus consistently examines how leading-edge technology can improve efficiencies for our customers’ businesses. The advantage of having CCTV cameras on a wireless network is the ease of deployment. They can be installed at a lower cost anytime, any place, and anywhere. This provides greater flexibility because the cameras can be readily moved in response to the council’s needs. The information is then transmitted onto the council’s data network and can be accessed from any location –  even a police car located around the corner from the camera.”

External Links

Intel
Telindus

Frame agreement covers Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Nokia has signed a frame agreement with TeliaSonera for the modernization and upgrade of its existing GSM/GPRS/EDGE Nokia network in the Nordic countries.  Deliveries have already begun and the network upgrade will serve approximately eight million TeliaSonera subscribers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

“This contract with Nokia will enable us to attain our target of synergy benefits across the TeliaSonera group and grow our business as we evolve to more advanced mobile services,” says Lars-Gunnar Johansson, Group Vice President, Corporate Networks & Technology, TeliaSonera.

“We are happy to further strengthen our excellent relationship with TeliaSonera by enabling it to upgrade its networks in order to offer its customers the most advanced mobile multimedia media services and improved user experience,” says Jan Lindgren, Vice President, Networks, Nokia.

Under the agreement, Nokia  is supplying its complete GSM, GPRS and EDGE systems.  In addition, it will provide installation and an extensive range of care services including emergency support to maintain the competitiveness of the solution. The services will be provided using Nokia NetAct(TM), the only fully-featured, multi-vendor, multi-technology operations support system on a single platform.

TeliaSonera is the leading telecommunications company in the Nordic and Baltic regions. At the end of December 2003 TeliaSonera had 11,957,000 mobile customers (37,610,000 incl associated companies) and 8,061,000 fixed customers (9,160,000 incl associated companies) and 1,631,000 internet customers (1,691,000 incl associated companies).

External Links

Nokia
TeliaSonera

New offices in Paris, Gothenburg and Madrid

Smartner, the European leader in mobile email and office solutions, today announced further expansion into Europe and forming of Smartner offices to Paris France, Gothenburg Sweden and Madrid Spain. Thomas Chauchard has been appointed as Executive Vice President Business Development to drive Smartner’s European operations further.

Chauchard brings 18 years of sales and operations management experience in high technology, primarily in leading software organisations to Smartner. Prior to joining Smartner, Chauchard was the managing director at iPIN for the EMEA operating territory with offices in Paris, London and Munich. He was responsible for all business operations in this region, which included sales, event marketing and professional services.

“I am very happy to have Thomas joining us and the new offices guarantee that we are where we have to be; close to our European customers”, said Paul Hedman, CEO Smartner. “Thomas Chauchard will help driving Smartner’s ongoing international business expansion, with responsibility for international sales and business development. His extensive knowledge of the vertical markets will be invaluable as Smartner continues to build on its leadership position and takes the mobile email and office solutions market to the next level.”

Smartner’s mobile email solution, Smartner Duality extends access to Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes to mobile devices. It pushes new emails automatically to mobile professionals without any user interaction, and provides them with complete control over their desktop functions while away from their office, with all actions mirrored simultaneously on their desktop. The Smartner Duality solution can be affordably deployed in environments ranging from only one to thousands of users, thanks to an extremely easy installation process, data traffic management, and the support for a range of most popular mobile devices available, including the new Microsoft and Symbian phones. The solution is available as Smartner Duality through Smartner reseller channels, and also trough European operators as a white-labeled solution.

“The market opportunity for Smartner Duality worldwide is phenomenal. Smartner has already secured its place as the European market leader and I look forward to growing this position in the international marketplace,” said Thomas Chauchard, Executive Vice President Business Development, Smartner.

External Links

Smartner

Measurement system ensures call and session quality are monitored throughout

QUALITA, a new measurement and analysis tool being launched by AIRCOM International addresses many of the quality issues faced by 3G, GPRS and GSM operators. With their emphases now on retaining existing subscribers, especially the high value ones, and preventing churn, the need is for end-to-end measurement of network quality and the analysis of any under-performance.

3G services are adding further impetus to the measurement of end-to-end quality as the complexity of measuring QoS is greater in IP networks. To offer the guaranteed high service levels demanded by applications such as ‘real-time’ video, quality parameters such as delay, packet loss and throughput have to be continuously monitored for each service type; relying on the ‘best effort’ QoS of the Internet is not an option.

QUALITA achieves this by measuring performance not just at the network and service levels, but also at the subscriber level where a new metric, Quality of Experience (QoE), allows operators to determine the exact experience of the user at the terminal level. The user judges performance in terms of  service availability and accessibility together with speed and excellence of communications.

Apart from QoE the system measures the Quality of Service at the service level and Key Quality Indicators at the network level providing end-to-end measurement of the quality of calls across the complete network for each service type, subscriber group, terminal model and network location; or a combination of them.

QUALITA works by analysing Call Detail Records( CDRs) for quality indicators such as reliability; delay; and peak and mean throughputs together with specific 3G indicators such as conversational and streaming. QoE indicators include location updates and roaming plus success with call, sessions, services, content and SMS, as well as networks and VAS availability.

An effective and unique method devised by AIRCOM for quantifying quality-based on subscriber groups, locations, services and terminal types ranging from Q1 (best) to Q6 (worst) offers a quick and comprehensive method of understanding the degree of degradation that customers experience for a certain service in a particular location for a particular terminal type.

Operators also benefit from the use of QUALITA’s CDR database to extract valuable marketing information about subscriber behaviour, usage patterns and service usage together with reports comparing quality offered to users by locations, services, terminals or subscriber groups. ‘Top 10’ reports highlight best performing terminals, areas and services with high call usage, services and locations with best quality; and subscriber groups with highest call usage.

External Links

Aircom International

During January 2004 the total number of WAP page impressions viewed in the UK reached 1.2 billion, according to figures announced today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

This shows an increase of almost 200 million on December and provides the highest monthly figure yet recorded. The total, from GSM Network operators O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, takes the daily average to 38 million, more than doubling the 17 million pages viewed on an average day during January 2003.

MDA Chairman, Mike Short, commented: ‘The fact that ringtone and games downloads regularly contribute to the rising number of WAP PI’s viewed in the UK each month has been well documented by the MDA. Increasingly, mobile operators are partnering with companies in the news and sports arenas to provide more compelling content and improved ease of navigation around mobile internet sites. They are also focussing on a much wider audience, and users interested in services such as flight and train timetables can expect to see more content available to them on their mobile phones as these partnerships develop.”

The MDA continues to publish a monthly ‘Top 10 Chart’ of the most popular ringtones downloaded across the four UK Network Operators, with January’s chart as follows:
1. Shut Up – Black-Eyed Peas
2. Hey Ya! – Outkkast
3. Mad World – Gary Jules
4. Changes – Kelly and Ozzy Osborne
5. Milkshake – Kelis
6. Somebody to Love – Boogie Pimps
7. Where is the Love – Black-Eyed Peas feat. Justin Timberlake
8. I’m Still in Love – Sean Paul
9. Feeling Fine – Ultrabeat
10.Take Me to the Clouds Above – LMC

External Links

Mobile Data Association
MDA WAP initiative