ACE*COMM's Convergent Mediation™
Customer and Partner Newsletter
Vol. 3, No. 1 ¤ June 2004 ¤ Service Provider Edition
[Enterprise OSS customers go here.]
ACE*COMM Acquires Intasys – Extends OSS Line
ACE*COMM recently acquired the OSS products, services, business, and related solutions of Intasys (IBT). The new division, called ACE*COMM Solutions, will be based in the UK and Australia.
ACE*COMM Solutions offers customer-centric technologies in mobile billing and Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) that complement ACE*COMM's products and extend the Convergent Mediation™ product line to create a more complete OSS solution, targeting Tier 2 and Tier 3 service providers worldwide.
A hearty ACE*COMM welcome to Intasys customers! We are committed to working with you, to seek your input toward helping us provide you with the products and the functionality that you require to meet your business objectives, both now and in the future.
For more information, please contact
, Senior Vice-president of Business Development (514-843-7700).
ACE*COMM Customer Success Story Presented at Two Industry Events
Dan Baker, Research Director at the Technology Research Institute (TRI), presented an ACE*COMM customer success story at the Billing Systems 2004 Conference and Exhibition in London, England on April 19.
Entitled "Using Mediation to Make Real-time Cost-reducing and Revenue-enhancing Decisions," the presentation detailed how Birch Telecom took proactive steps to employ ACE*COMM's mediation technology to improve its bottom-line by maximizing revenues and minimizing costs.
Birch had identified the need for a mediation solution that would enable them to avoid revenue leakage and to control payments made to partners. A specific objective was the auditing of carrier access billing (CABS) records.
Birch had been working with an in-house CDR-handling solution that was neither flexible nor scalable. In addition, they realized they had been forwarding irrelevant records to their third-party billing vendors and were being charged for processing them. Further, a recent merger between Birch and a similar CLEC resulted in the addition of new legacy retail and CABS billing systems. For the merger to be a success, network efficiencies needed to happen fast and the merged companies had to effectively market a combined product.
A few weeks later, Tim Pflugradt (Manager, Mediation Application Development at Birch Telecom) and Jonjie Sena (ACE*COMM's Director of Product Architecture, Mediation) presented the Birch customer success story at the Billing & OSS World 2004 show in Washington, DC, on May 5-7. The Billing & OSS World in-show publication featured an article from ACE*COMM that included an abbreviated version of the case study. You can download the article in PDF format here.
Both presentations highlighted the benefits realized by Birch due to ACE*COMM's N*VISION®:
Fraud Management: Near real-time delivery of fraud information
Inter-connect Billing: a) Substantial savings from filtering of unbillable CDRs; b) Business rule changes handled quickly by table-driven filters
Multiple Format Conversions: For example, 5ESS/BAF records converted to Siemens DCO for an in-house billing system
Common Format/Single Point-of-Entry: Substantial time/labor savings and improved support from Operations and Customer Service representatives
Merger/Time-to-Market Issues: Three new switches and another billing system were added in only 10 weeks
Bottom-line: Real financial savings and improved billing integrity
"Best Integration Project" Finalist Award
ACE*COMM was selected by a panel of industry press and analysts as a finalist for the prestigious "Excellence Awards" at the Billing & OSS World 2004 event in the category of "Best Integration Project."
ACE*COMM was selected for its N*VISION® and Convergent Mediation™ installation for the O2 Airwave wireless network for all emergency personnel (fire, police, ambulance, etc.) in the United Kingdom. O2 Airwave, part of mmO2 plc, is a sophisticated communications system for the emergency and other public safety ("blue light") services. It will help make Britain safer by facilitating more effective and efficient policing and it offers the opportunity for more connected and integrated public safety services. ACE*COMM provides the Airwave service with the collection and aggregation systems to manage, store, and analyze data across a distributed network of wireless switches.
ACE*COMM showcased its OSS solutions and customer success stories at Billing & OSS World 2004. From L-R, ACE*COMM staffers: Fraser Scott, VP Sales; Tonia Cruz, Director – Customer Support & Development; Ty Roach, Manager – Engineering Programs; Marcie Weber, Director of Marketing Communications; Deepak Tiku, Director – OEM Sales; Greg Trexler, Director of Product Management-EOSS; and Jonjie Sena, Director of Product Architecture – Convergent Mediation™.
Sentori and ACE*COMM Join Forces to Provide Solution for BTC
Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), the leading telecommunications provider in the Bahamas, has selected Sentori Inc. and ACE*COMM to provide an integrated mediation, billing, and customer care solution to manage subscribers and network usage data on BTC's conventional TDMA mobile network and next-generation GSM mobile networks.
As prime contractor for the project, Sentori recommended ACE*COMM's Convergent Mediation™ solution to complement the Sentori® Billing and Customer Care system. The combined solution will enable BTC to increase revenue, lower administrative costs, and enhance the quality of its customer support.
"After an exhaustive search, we chose Sentori as the centerpiece of our next-generation billing and customer care operation. The flexibility of Sentori's billing and customer care solution will be a critical ingredient behind our success," said Leon Williams, BTC's Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "We are delighted by Sentori's selection of ACE*COMM to round out the solution and are confident that this best-of-breed team will deliver a successful implementation within our demanding deployment schedule."
New White Papers
ACE*COMM has recently released two new mediation white papers, which you can download from the Convergent Mediation™ white papers and product literature Web page. (Registration required.)
Proven Mediation Solutions for VoIP Environments
Telephone networks have been merging with IP-based data networks for some time now. In many cases, legacy-technology voice calls are partially carried on data networks as they traverse the lines from the originating to the destination points. This is transparent to the user, and with the exception of some billing issues, it is almost transparent to the service providers. As the technology for “packetizing” voice calls improves, the move towards full Voice over IP, or VoIP, gains momentum. There are a number of clear advantages to both the customer and the service provider in making the switch to VoIP, including lower costs and interesting new service offerings.
The ascendancy of VoIP, however, presents a number of challenges to the service provider with regard to data capture, processing, and billing. Through case studies and related information, this paper discusses some of those challenges and shows how ACE*COMM's Convergent Mediation™ solutions are perfectly positioned to meet them. ACE*COMM has been enabling converged networks since the mid-1990s, and offers proven solutions for today's most promising communications technologies and services.
Push-to-Talk: Using Mediation to Integrate PTT Services
PTT cellular service is in demand, and is a potentially profitable service for the wireless service provider. However, there are a number of technical hurdles to overcome in terms of integration with existing billing systems.
ACE*COMM's Convergent Mediation™ platform solves these integration problems by creating a layer of abstraction between the usage collection system and the downstream OSS/BSS. Within that layer, the mediation system aggregates the usage data from multiple sources and processes it so it makes sense to virtually any downstream system.
ACE*COMM Presents at Billing & OSS China
Han Xu, senior business consultant for ACE*COMM China, presented "Convergent Mediation – The Strategic Technology Tool for Communications Service Providers" at the first annual Billing & OSS China show in Beijing, China, in April 2004.
Representatives from local and international telecom operators, solutions vendors and consulting firms addressed key issues in the area of Billing & OSS, bringing the audience up to date on information for developing the next generation's billing system. ACE*COMM was a Silver Sponsor of this event. For more information on ACE*COMM China, contact .
Data Collection Project in Yunnan Province, China
ACE*COMM will provide a data collection mediation solution for Kunming Tel, a service provider in Yunnan Province, China. The solution provides the data collection elements from ACE*COMM's Convergent Mediation™ suite and will be used for the capture, processing, and storing of transaction records critical to the process of billing customers and managing traffic on the network. Kunming Tel is the telecommunications service provider for Kunming City – the capital city and largest metropolitan area in Yunnan Province. ACE*COMM worked with ZTE Corporation, China's largest telecommunications equipment provider, to secure this contract.
Customer Assurance: Key Turnaround Strategy for Telecoms
TRI Research Maps New CRM, Analytics, Data Warehouse, and Profit Enhancement Programs
As telecom carriers struggle to get their businesses moving again, they are taking a more proactive, holistic approach to managing customers.
That's the conclusion of a new 383-page report from Technology Research Institute (TRI) entitled, "Telecom Customer Assurance: Enhancing Profits through Churn Management, CRM, Data Warehouse, and Analytics Software & Services."
Telecoms have approached customer management in bits and pieces for years; the emerging discipline of customer assurance ties together multiple threads. These include CRM, self-care, churn management, business intelligence and analytics for sophisticated customer trend analysis, mediation data analysis, and customer profitability management.
The trend is driving a global market for customer assurance software and consulting services that reached $1.2 billion in 2003 with projected growth to $1.7 billion by 2008.
All told, customer assurance is a proactive strategy for optimizing a telecom's customer-facing systems and wrapping financial rigor around hard-to-quantify assets like customer "loyalty" and "satisfaction."
Competitive pressures, coupled with influencers like Local Number Portability and an increasing focus on profitability, are driving the renewed interest in customer assurance, according to TRI.
Key study findings include:
Telecoms today are putting a greater emphasis on managing customer profitability, resulting in significantly decreased costs due to churn and increased revenues from retaining the most valuable customers.
Several ground-breaking analytics and business intelligence technologies are making headway at telecoms. For instance, a credit service bureau used adaptive analytics to help a large carrier reduce staffing by 40% and save $70 million.
Web self-care's promise to reduce call center costs is beginning to materialize.
Advanced call center techniques are also gaining momentum. One European operator optimized a new "ROI" – "return on information" – mixing call center agent chatting with intelligence gathering to the tune of a 143% increase in upsells.
CRM solutions are finally delivering the much-hyped "single view" of the customer. Belgacom, for instance, is doing a multi-year migration of customer-facing applications merging customer service, repair, direct sales, point of sale, the dealer network, and self-care. The payoff? Great customer service: 10 minutes after an online order, the information is available to the call center representative.
Telecom data warehouse failures are legendary. But the report provides a case study of a major warehouse success at SBC. With 20,000 users on the system, the SBC warehouse is the cornerstone of the carrier's churn management, winback, and "active warehousing" programs that react to competitive threats in real time.
Telecom marketing campaign management is coming into its own: maturing from an ad hoc, reactive approach to a managed, quantitative method based on sophisticated market analysis technology.
A report synopsis, table of contents, and ordering information are available
at www.customer-assurance.com.
Founded in 1994, TRI is a market analyst firm focused on telecom billing,
assurance, and operational support systems (OSS). For more information, contact
Research Director, Dan Baker at 570-620-2320 or danb@technology-research.com.
Looking for the Enterprise OSS edition? Go here...
ACE*COMM in the News
ACE*COMM is featured in the story "Come Together: Mediation Makes Connections for Revenue Assurance, Time-to-Market" in XCHANGE Magazine. Read it here.
Telephony Online has listed ACE*COMM as one of the “10 Public OSS Companies to Watch.” Read it here.
Go to the "Press Coverage" page for more about ACE*COMM in the media!
Upcoming Events
Visit ACE*COMM at these upcoming events!
CommunicAsia – Singapore Expo
June 17, Singapore
Mehran Moghaddam (ACE*COMM's Vice-President of Engineering) will present "Making 3G Work: Mediation's Role in Migrating to 3G OSS, Minimizing Costs, and Maximizing Revenues."
Asia-Pacific Push-to-Talk Forum 2004
July 1-2, Bangkok, Thailand
Jonjie Sena (ACE*COMM's Director of Product Architecture – Convergent Mediation™) will present "Making PTT Work: Mediation's Role in Implementing PTT Services and Eliminating OSS Layer Integration Challenges."
Feature Quote
"As part of their vision of excellence in the ongoing development of the nation-wide communications system, Telecom Egypt (TE) understands that access to the most accurate and up-to-date data is essential to understanding all aspects of network performance. To deliver on their expectations, we selected ACE*COMM's solutions primarily because of their robust capabilities and experience in complex multi-vendor network environments. Their solutions' flexible and forward-looking design allows for the rapid integration of multiple switch types, and new technologies and services, and for data to be analyzed to identify problem areas and opportunities. Ultimately, this will help TE make better business decisions."
Shehab Nawawi, CEO of Giza Systems (ACE*COMM's systems integration partner for Telecom Egypt's country-wide data-collection mediation project)
Customer Support Info
ACE*COMM
Hours: 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM U.S. EST
Weekdays, except for ACE*COMM-observed holidays. After-hours calls are handled by the ACE*COMM answering service.
800-989-5566
301-721-HELP (4357)
Escalation Path:
(1) Customer Support (2) ,
Director of Customer Service
(301-721-3089)
(3) ,
VP of Customer Care
(301-721-3031)
ACE*COMM Solutions
Australia / Asia
Hours: 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM QLD Weekdays, except for ACE*COMM-observed holidays. After-hours calls are handled in accordance with service level agreements.
+61 (0)7 5555 5428
Escalation Path:
(1) Customer Support (2) Shri Mordekar, Professional & Technical Services Manager
(+61 (0)7 5555 5417) (3) Iain Wilson, VP of Professional Services
(+44 (0)131 625 8200)
ACE*COMM Solutions
UK / North America
Hours: 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM UK Weekdays, except for ACE*COMM-observed holidays. After-hours calls are handled in accordance with service level agreements.
+44 (0)7000 267797
Escalation Path:
(1) Customer Support (2) Jo Roberts, Account Manager
(+44 (0)131 625 8200) (3) Iain Wilson, VP of Professional Services
(+44 (0)131 625 8200)
About ACE*News
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ACE*COMM was selected for its N*VISION® and Convergent Mediation™ installation for the O2 Airwave wireless network for all emergency personnel (fire, police, ambulance, etc.) in the United Kingdom. O2 Airwave, part of mmO2 plc, is a sophisticated communications system for the emergency and other public safety ("blue light") services. It will help make Britain safer by facilitating more effective and efficient policing and it offers the opportunity for more connected and integrated public safety services. ACE*COMM provides the Airwave service with the collection and aggregation systems to manage, store, and analyze data across a distributed network of wireless switches. 
Proven Mediation Solutions for VoIP Environments 
Push-to-Talk: Using Mediation to Integrate PTT Services
