BARCELONA, 26 February 2008 — At the Mobile World Congress, XIUS-bcgi announced that it had signed a significant deal with Zain (Bahrain) to deploy XIUS-bcgi’s InstaRoam Roaming Solution for its subscribers. According to Parvis Ansary, VP sales EMEA, XIUS-bcgi, this application will allow Zain Bahrain to service Zain Saudi Arabia in terms of enabling roaming with Zain’s Saudi network.
XIUS-bcgi’s InstaRoam offers instant roaming access with a single agreement into more than 500 networks in more than 250 countries. The solution eliminates complex testing procedures and the need for securing operator agreements, and its dual-IMSI architecture gives customers a global roaming footprint. To develop roaming capabilities normally takes an operator several man-years to build, inevitably leading to a loss of revenue. With InstaRoam, operators are able to deploy roaming capabilities within a matter of weeks.
“The requirement obviously comes from the customer’s perspective. The InstaRoam solution will enable Zain to host roaming services for their own satellite networks where they’ll be required. Essentially the first area where this will come into effect will be with their new license in Saudi Arabia,” said Ansary.
Roaming agreements are essential, explained Ansary because if a traveler comes into a country and there aren’t roaming agreements that allow him to communicate back to the host country of his mobile service, then he can’t use the local network to make or receive calls.
“For the Kingdom in particular, during Haj there are people from many different nations coming to Saudi Arabia,” said Ansary. “Through this agreement, Zain Saudi will immediately have a large number of roaming agreements that will allow all those pilgrims to communicate. Without this agreement, Zain would have a fantastic network but you wouldn’t be able to talk to anybody who was outside it.”
“It is our mission to provide world-class, high-quality mobile services to each of our subscribers worldwide, and we pride ourselves in giving customers seamless connectivity no matter their location,” added Dr. Ahmed Al Shatti, chief operating officer of Zain (Bahrain).
Intercol which represents XIUS-bcgi Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia handled the InstaRoam implementation and Zain was able to begin successful test calls with the solution two weeks ago. In regards to the number of roaming agreements that have come into force, Ansary commented, “Typically a tier one operator like Zain would have something in the region of 450-500 networks, not necessarily countries connected.
We talk in terms of networks not countries because say from England there could be three operators. So these are all GSM operators who are party to that agreement. In terms of countries it could be 150.”
Thanks to the success of the InstaRoam implementation, the XIUS-bcgi team expect to be returning to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain shortly to demonstrate a new solution, their Mobile Guardian, which combines access management capabilities with content-filtering technology. Mobile Guardian provides telecom operators with a product that allows consumer and enterprise subscribers to act as “guardians” for all lines on their accounts, monitoring and managing mobile content, voice and SMS usage in real time. With Mobile Guardian, subscribers can select content categories, create specific contact lists, customize usage settings and define allowances to meet specific needs.
“We really see this as a service that will be embraced by parents who would like to give a telephone to their young children as a safety measure, but they want to control its use - especially for children 12 and under,” said Ersin Galioglu, chief operating officer of XIUS-bcgi.
“Parents might want to give a phone to children but they might not be sure that it will be used in the right manner. So MobileGuardian allows parents to provide their children with the positive aspects of mobile communication while protecting them from the negatives.”
In today’s mobile environment, access management is critical, as inappropriate and dangerous content is becoming pervasive. For example, the GSM Association (GSMA) has just launched the Mobile Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Content to obstruct the use of the mobile environment by individuals or organizations wishing to consume or profit from child sexual abuse content. While the vast majority of child sexual abuse content is today accessed through conventional connections to the Internet, there is a danger that the broadband networks now being rolled out by mobile operators could be misused in the same way.
The Alliance has been founded by the GSMA, Hutchison 3G Europe, mobilkom austria, Orange FT Group, Telecom Italia, Telefonica/02, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, T-Mobile Group, Vodafone Group and dotMobi to create significant barriers to the misuse of mobile networks and services for hosting, accessing or profiting from child sexual abuse content. These companies have mobile operations across the world, ensuring that the Alliance will have a global impact. The Alliance aims to stem, and ultimately reverse, the growth of online child sexual abuse content, maintaining a safer mobile environment for everyone.
Members of the Alliance will, among other measures, implement technical mechanisms to prevent access to websites identified by an appropriate agency as hosting child sexual abuse content. Members will also implement Notice and Take Down processes to enable the removal of any child sexual abuse content posted on their own services, while supporting and promoting “hotlines” or other mechanisms for customers to report child sexual abuse content discovered on the Internet or on mobile content services.
“As the specialized United Nations agency for information and communication technologies (ICT), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) welcomes the new Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse to protect children from the misuse of mobile broadband networks by child predators around the world,” said Hamadoun I. Touré, secretary-general, International Telecommunication Union. “The World Summit on the Information Society called for national and international measures against the use of ICT in all forms of child abuse and encouraged the setting up of child helplines. Those measures have been endorsed by the ITU and they are being adopted by our distinctive membership of 191 member states and some 700 private companies. The Mobile Alliance is a prime example of the proactive action industry can take and, together with government and law enforcement support, we can make significant progress in the global fight against child sexual abuse content online.”
XIUS-bcgi’s Mobile Guardian will allow both parents and enterprises to determine how mobile subscriptions under their authority are used and what mobile content is accessed. For example, enterprises could restrict the use of a mobile subscription outside of business hours and restrict which Internet sites are accessed with that subscription. Parents could determine that SMS messages could only be sent or received before 8 p.m. to a mobile number under their control.
“As mobile penetration increases, the age of mobile users decreases,” said Galioglu. “Carriers feel a little bit in the middle because they want to promote their services to a younger generation but there are certain negatives. So with MobileGuardian this gives the parents control so they can actually establish good phone usage with their children.
Subscribers are demanding access management, and we believe this is a service that will differentiate the mobile operators who provide it.”
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