AsiaInfo wins multi technology billing contract
cellular-news.com
AsiaInfo Holdings has signed a contract with one of China Unicom's major subsidiaries, Jiangsu Unicom to provide the carrier with a convergent customer care and billing system.
Based on AsiaInfo's Next Generation Operation Support System (AINGOSS), AsiaInfo's convergent billing software offers a common support platform for a wide range of services. It provides an integrated billing solution for both GSM and CDMA cellular, together with paging, long distance, data, and Internet services, and offers an integrated customer database across all services. In this initial phase of development, the system is designed to support more than 12 million service subscribers by the year 2004. Additionally, AsiaInfo will also provide the carrier with three years of round-the-clock technical support and personnel training.
By the end of February 2003, China Unicom had approximately 68 million mobile customers, of which about 61 million were using GSM and about 7 million were using CDMA. The carrier's national CDMA network covers 30 provinces and autonomous regions and has the capacity to handle nearly 15.2 million subscribers. Designed to offer more advanced services such as high-speed Internet access and videophones, the carrier's CDMA 2000 1x trial network has also been established in seven cities, including Hangzhou in the Jiangsu province. Requiring more sophisticated software support, Jiangsu Unicom awarded AsiaInfo this important project to implement the convergence of voice, data, video, and IP services, reduce operating costs, and improve management information systems.
"This contract win represents an important success in expanding our already strong OSS solution market share and our growing CDMA capabilities," said Xingsheng Zhang, president and Chief Executive Officer of AsiaInfo. "As Unicom develops its CDMA services, integrated OSS solutions will become increasingly crucial to its operations. We are confident that our established market presence and sound track record in the OSS market will enable us to further strengthen our relationship with other China Unicom subsidiaries and all the major telecom companies in China going forward. As carriers' software investments as a percentage of overall spending gradually picks up, our leading market share position us well for our long-term growth." |
