The Market Leader for the Ring Back Tone Service, the European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT), Further Expands Its Position Throughout Europe

Two more mobile operators in Scandinavia and Southern Europe bank on the ECT Groups solution for the innovative service

Munich (PRWEB) December 17, 2004 -- Further expanding its position as Europes market leader for the ring back tone service, the European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT) has won two major contracts in Scandinavia and Southern Europe over the past few weeks. The ECT Group will implement the service for two leading mobile operators in those regions, with an overall contract value of several million EUR. In addition, the ECT Group has expanded existing Ring Back Tone Service installations for several of its customers, while also winning a number of new contracts for the service across Europe. During 2004, nearly all major launches of the ring back tone service in Europe have been based on the ECT Groups technology.

The latest contracts are extremely valuable to us and further improve the ECT Groups position as Europes top provider of the ring back tone service," said Dr. Marshall E. Kavesh, ECT Group CEO and cofounder. Customers appreciate our extremely short time-to-market, the cost-effectiveness of our products and the variety of features included for the ECT Ring Back Tone Service."

The ECT Ring Back Tone Service is one of the ECT Groups latest success stories. Across the continent, the ECT Group has sold the service to major customers in all key telecoms markets. The latest deals further expand the ECT Groups leading position in Scandinavia, while also positioning the company in Southern Europe, which is emerging as a key growth market for value-added services in the wake of liberalisation in its telecoms market.

The ECT Ring Back Tone Service boasts an impressive track record in the European market, and for all of our customers it has emerged as a major money-maker in times when many mobile operators and providers are seeking new revenue streams," Kavesh added.

The ECT Groups CEO does not envisage the services success thus far to be the end of the road. On the contrary: The service has already proven to be a great success all over Europe -- from the Scandinavia to Turkey, and from Portugal to the Baltics."

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 the European Computer Telecoms Group
The European Computer Telecoms Group, 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 European Computer Telecoms Ltd. in London and ECT Vertriebs- und 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. In 2004 ECT received the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award" due to its being one of Germanys fastest-growing technology companies.

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 utilised by major mobile carriers, such as Vodafone D2, Tele2Comviq, TeliaSonera, Omnitel, the Saunalahti Group 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 used by major Internet service providers such as United Internet AG, as well as by 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 liberalised 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 line 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 and intelligent value-added services. Via its INtellECT® Service Control Point, ECT creates intelligent networks using the Intelligent Network Application Protocol (INAP) CS1 and CS2.

For further press information:
European Computer Telecoms AG   
Hagen Gutsfeld
Marketing and PR   
Ridlerstr. 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

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