New technology that is changing the way mobile communication companies will manage much of their enterprises has been launched in South Africa by Ambridge Technologies, a subsidiary of Ambridge Group headquartered in Switzerland. The South African designed software has recently launched into the international market.
The ContinuAM modulised product range has caught the imagination of network and service providers both in South Africa and abroad. Its structure makes it unique in the business of IT telecommunications and currently consists of customer care and billing, subscriber information management (MIS/CRM) and fraud management systems.
"ContinuAM is the concise and efficient management of subscriber information that will change the way network and service providers bill, relate to their customers and safeguard against fraud," says Ambridge Technologies MD, Steve Shaw. "Most importantly, it is highly scaleable and cost effective."
Because of its cost effectiveness and understanding of local conditions, the ContinuAm range is meeting with enthusiastic response from mobile communication operators in many parts of Africa.
Facing the challenges head-on
"Telecommunications today is becoming ever more complex and demanding," says Shaw. "Many of the new services and offerings made by network/service providers today are based on new and innovative software solutions."
Some of the problems encountered include the speed at which these offerings can be supported by the underlying software solutions and the fact that many existing solutions today run independently of each other causing needless and costly duplication. In other instances a lack of integration between the various offerings limits the network/service providers from maximising their benefits from the data and information within the software systems. In addition, various offerings would potentially run on different operating systems and database platforms, further limiting the integration and increasing overall support costs.
"What makes our product unique is the modular application of the ContinuAm system," says Shaw. "It comprises a library of integrated modules to deal with and solve such problems as speed, integration, duplication and future needs capability, currently existing in the development arena."
The modules form part of the ContinuAm suite to be combined and used on a when-needed basis.
"Various modules may be combined to form packages," Shaw points out. "They can be run independently of each other or use the extra information inherently available if other packages or modules are installed. This quickly and easily increases the overall value of information."
Scalability = greater flexibility + cost efficiency
ContinuAm modules inherently support a distributed multi-platform environment, which means that various operating systems can be used - such as billing and administration operating on Open VMS, fraud management running on Digital Unix or Linux and MIS running on Windows NT - would all share the same logical Oracle database.
"This scalability immediately delivers greater flexibility by being able to plug in to most operating systems from the common database," says Shaw. "By implementing this wide and varied selection of modules, network/service providers are presented with a complete suite of packages all compatible with one another. This eliminates exceptional upgrade costs and high levels of customisation normally called for when integrating various communication platforms."
The modulated billing, information management and anti-fraud solutions are a world first and their introduction abroad is keenly awaited by international cellular network and service providers.
The South African company was acquired by Ambridge Group last year.
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