The European Computer Telecoms Group provides the technology for Ringuppsignaler, Tele2/Comviqs new ring back tone service.

Using a customized solution from ECT, Tele2/Comviq becomes the first company in Scandinavia to offer its customers ring back tone service.

Stockholm; Munich (PRWEB) August 29, 2004 -- The European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT), Europes market leader for intelligent value-added services, has provided a turnkey solution for ring back tone service to the Tele2 Group, Europes leading alternative telecommunications supplier of fixed-line and mobile telephony solutions. ECT thus brings its new solution to Scandinavia after successful implementations in Germany and China. In a competitive bidding process, ECT was recently awarded the contract for Tele2s new product, Ringuppsignaler. With its extensive experience in ring back tone projects, ECT was able to provide Tele2 customised user and network interfaces with the shortest possible time-to-market and highest possible cost-efficiency. I am pleased that our long-time partner, the Tele2 Group, has now also joined the ranks of major mobile operators utilizing our solution for ring back tone service," said Dr. Marshall E. Kavesh, the ECT Groups CEO.

Ring back tone is a completely new type of entertainment service for mobile phones that has proven to be very profitable in Asia and other countries. Now Tele2/Comviq is the first mobile carrier in Scandinavia to offer its customers ring back tones, both tapping new revenue streams and further differentiating its mobile services from the competition. The new service can be seen at www.comviq.se .

With the ECT Ring Back Tone Service, mobile customers can choose various songs, jokes or other sounds played to the person who calls them at the same time as they hear the familiar ring back tone. The service works regardless of who calls. Anyone who is a Tele2/Comviq mobile subscriber or has a mobile calling card can use the service.

The ECT Ring Back Tone Service allows operators to market the service together with one or several content providers, who by own-branded web portals serve as indirect sales channels and contribute to the commercial success of the new service. The mobile-user can set the ring back tones based on the person calling as well as the time of day and date. Subscribers can buy and configure their personalised ring back tone over a wide variety of user interfaces, including the Internet, WAP, interactive voice response (IVR), and SMS.

The ECT Group offers an easily customized and scalable solution for the ring back tone service, having realized several successful projects with major carriers across Europe, including Vodafone D2 in Germany. The solution includes network interfaces for post-paid and prepaid billing and provisioning, a statistics package as well as a content provider interface.

For over five years, the Tele2 Group has utilized our technology, including the AutoCarrier® Softswitch and INtellECT® Intelligent Network, to realize value-added services across Europe," said ECT CEO and company co-founder, Dr. Marshall E. Kavesh, With the new ring back tone service, we are particularly proud to have the opportunity to further contribute to Tele2s cost advantages and innovative product portfolio."

Background information on the Ring Back Tone service
The traditional ring back tone is the tone heard by someone who calls your telephone number. The ECT Ring Back Tone Service allows mobile subscribers to replace this standard tone with a personalised sound file. The mobile subscriber can assign different ring back tones to different callers or group of callers, even dependent upon the date, weekday and/or time. The personalised ring back tone can be a pop song purchased over a portal, a message recorded by the subscriber, a corporate advertisement, a joke, etc.

User Interfaces for your Mobile Subscribers: Each implementation of ECT Ring Back Tone Service generally includes four customised user interfaces for the administration of the service by the mobile subscriber: telephone interface via interactive voice response (IVR), a web portal, a WAP portal and an SMS interface.

Interfaces to Content Providers: The customised web portal provided by ECT offers content providers an open data interface for the uploading of ring back tones, definition of ring back tone group, pricing of ring back tones, downloading of event tickets and statistics, etc. You can make this interface available to external providers also delivering content or reserve this interface for your internal use.

There are three different architectures to realise this service: The AutoCarrier® Softswitch in a central or a de-central service node architecture with tromboning, without tromboning using the call drop back feature in the Mobile-Switching-Center (MSC) or in an Intelligent Network Architecture with the INtellECT® Service Control Point and AutoCarrier® Communications Servers as Intelligent Peripherals.

The complete turnkey solution of the ECT Group contains the following components:
• Customised AutoCarrier® Data Warehousing and Separate File Server, e.g. for library of ring back tones, subscriber data, transaction-based records, call data records, statistics, etc.
• Customised interfaces from the AutoCarrier® Data Warehousing to your Customer Care System and billing databases as well as to content providers.
• Customised user interfaces and front ends for the administration and usage of the system by the subscriber, e.g. SMS, interactive voice response (IVR), WAP, GPRS PDA, mobile handset JAVA applets and web interfaces.

About Tele2
Tele2Comviqs business offering is mobile telephony. Tele2Comviqs business idea is a simple one: to make mobile telephony available to as many people as possible at a price that is as low as possible. Today Tele2/Comviq is one of Swedens leading GSM carriers. Tele2Comviqs GSM network provides our customers with one of the most comprehensive range of services in the world. Our aim is to always be able to offer our customers sophisticated services at a fair price. Tele2/Comviq belongs to Tele2 AB, which was established in 1993. Tele2 AB is listed at the Stockholm Stock Exchange and at NASDAQ.

Tele2 AB, formed in 1993, is the leading alternative pan-European telecommunications company offering fixed and mobile telephony, data network and Internet services under the brands Tele2, Tango and Comviq to over 23 million people in 24 countries. Tele2 operates Datametrix, which specializes in systems integration, 3C Communications, providing integrated credit card processing, web payment solutions and public payphones; Transac, providing billing and transaction processing service; C³, offering co-branded pre-paid calling cards and Optimal Telecom, the price-guaranteed residential router device. The Group offers cable television services and, together with MTG, owns the Internet portal Everyday.com. The Company is listed on the Stockholmsbörsen, under TEL2A and TEL2B, and on the Nasdaq Stock Market under TLTOA and TLTOB.

About the European Computer Telecoms Group
The European Computer Telecoms Group, or ECT for short, was established in Munich, Germany in 1998, shortly after the German telecommunications market was liberalised. Today ECT encompasses the mother company European Computer Telecoms AG as well as the European Computer Telecoms Ltd. in London and the ECT Vertriebs- and Servicegesellschaft mbH in Munich. In addition, there are registered ECT Sales and Service Centres in Paris, Strasbourg, The Hague, Warsaw and Vienna. ECT is also affiliated with Interactive Technologies Holdings Limited in Hong Kong and has a direct sales and service presence in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

ECT enables highly profitable value-added services via software applications running on its own complete line of open platforms for public switching, service nodes, intelligent networks, intelligent peripherals and next-generation networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP). ECTs mobile value-added services, e.g. Ring Back Tone Service, Prepaid Mobile and Number Portability, are utilized by major mobile carriers, such as Vodafone D2, Tele2, TeliaSonera, Omnitel, the Saunalahti Group, Radiolinja and Hutchison. ECT's fixed-line customers include major incumbents, such as BT, Deutsche Telekom and TeliaSonera, as well as alternative carriers, such as Tele2, Completel, Telewest and Versatel. ECT value-added services are also to be found at major Internet service providers, such as the United Internet AG, as well as larger providers of prepaid calling cards and services, such as Alpha Telecom, the Calling Card Company Ltd., Central Telecom and Mox Telecom. In the recently liberalized markets of Eastern Europe, ECT also provides cost-efficient and low-maintenance public switching with interconnection. In the Czech Republic, for instance, ECT has equipped virtually all the alternative carriers including PragoNet, the local subsidiary of the Deutsche Telekom Group.

ECT has developed a large family of applications for value-added services, such as fixed-line and mobile number portability, service numbers with televoting and network-based call centre functionality, ring back tone service, prepaid mobile, teleconferencing services, personal number services, and prepaid calling cards. Additional service applications are introduced on a regular basis, all of which run on both the ECT AutoCarrier® and INtellECT® platforms. The AutoCarrier® is a class 4 softswitch that can be utilised for both interconnection to the public telephone network as well as intelligent value-added services. Via its INtellECT® Service Control Point, ECT realises intelligent networks with the Intelligent Network Application Protocol (INAP) CS1 and CS2.

For further press information:

European Computer Telecoms AG   
Hagen Gutsfeld
Marketing and PR   
Ridlerstraße 55   
80339 Munich
Germany   
Tel.: (0049) 89/ 55 29 47 -- 169
Fax: (0049) 89/ 55 29 47 - 111
E-Mail: hagen.gutsfeld@ect-telecoms.de