UUNET SA acquires equity stake in Smartcom to develop converged mobile solutions

UUNET SA has acquired 50 percent plus one share of Smartcom, a member of the Smartcall group, the largest independent Vodacom exclusive service provider in South Africa. The acquisition enables the development of converged mobile solutions for corporate customers by combining Internet and GSM technologies.

"Data is going mobile," says Grant Theis, senior executive at UUNET SA. "With the acquisition of Smartcom, UUNET SA is the first network service provider in Africa to offer customers GSM capabilities and solutions over an Internet Protocol backbone. This makes mobile communications, such as Internet banking with a PDA or smartphone, instant messaging, mobile Intranet, unified communications and mobile data roaming, a reality."

UUNET SA`s African network will give customers Internet connectivity in 16 African countries by the end of the year. UUNET SA and Smartcom will be able to provide customers with international data roaming at local connection costs, which will allow users to access information located in the server from anywhere in Africa. "This is a significant advantage for companies with operations throughout the continent, as an employee on business in Ghana, for example, will be able to download their e-mail from our network in Johannesburg onto their PDA or smartphone, all for the cost of a local phone call," explains Theis. "UUNET is currently building a GPRS enabled roaming network that will connect 400 GSM operators around the world. This will enable users to enjoy the same mobile data experience anywhere in the world."

Says Nick Zografos, CEO of Smartcom: "Our product offerings will be tailored to meet the needs of our corporate customers. UUNET SA and Smartcom are working together to ensure our customers` smooth migration to new mobile data technology with minimal integration trauma and costs.

"The alliance will enable billing on a single invoice, as both companies believe that the new services are part of one complete solution rather than separate offerings," concludes Zografos.