February 11, 2011, Barcelona, Spain – Alepo announced today its partnership with Latin American service provider, IBW, to provide an LTE-ready Online Charging System (OCS) for the rollout of WiMAX networks across Central America, enabling IBW to later extend or transition to LTE and other 4G technologies while maintaining a single, convergent billing & charging platform.
Deployment of Alepo’s Online Charging System will ensure that IBW remains at the forefront of 4G technologies while protecting its investment in the core network.
“In the developing Latin American markets, it was crucial to implement a solution that can readily adapt to changes in technology, market conditions and regulations,” stated Paul Ives Choiseul, IBW CTO. “The flexibility of Alepo’s OCS reassures us of our investment, even as technologies evolve and our subscriber base grows.”
Alepo’s 3GPP-compliant OCS handles the rating, charging, and balance management of all services in real time and communicates with policy controls to ensure zero leakage of revenue. With an integrated offline charging system and billing domain, the innovative solution dismantles the traditional vertical architecture, allowing for fully convergent prepaid / postpaid business plans.
In addition, the LTE-ready system supports advanced authentication functions, mobility management, roaming, and handover, allowing for interworking between access technologies, both 3GPP and non-3GPP.
“Until recently, WiMAX and LTE had been thought of as dueling technologies, racing to become the standard for 4G,” stated John Kim, Alepo Vice President of Sales. “However, the convergence of access technologies is a very real scenario and is likely to gain momentum as service providers look to future-proof their investments in core network systems.”
Whether IBW ultimately decides to transition from WiMAX to LTE or to support both technologies simultaneously, the Alepo OCS will remain intact, which will allow the service provider to act swiftly on market conditions without additional costs, risks or delay on the part of the charging system.
“We look forward to our partnership with IBW to provide innovative and robust solutions that will enable the organization to grow its customer base and evolve into new technologies while protecting its investment,” stated Kim.
About IBW
IBW, an emerging service provider across Central America, is positioning itself to provide high-quality commercial and residential services, including voice, data and video, over a licensed 802.16e WiMAX network. Today, the company has a presence in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador.
About Alepo
Alepo is a leading provider of IT and network infrastructure software solutions for communications service providers worldwide. Alepo works closely with market leaders including Vodafone, MTN, France Telecom, and Digicel, empowering them to compete aggressively and realize data opportunities across technologies and generations. Alepo is proud to support innovative market leaders as they evolve in the telecommunications marketplace.
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