Ringback Tones are tunes or other sound bites that replace the standard tone that callers hear as they wait for their calls to be answered. This service has already been launched successfully in many parts of the world and now Ericsson is delivering it to 3 Italy's customers. These kinds of entertainment and personalization solutions help operators attract new subscribers and keep existing customers loyal.

Dina Ravera, Chief Operating Officer, 3 Italy, says: "Ericsson has proven to be a good partner for us. By choosing to broaden this partnership, we are able to provide our customers with what's in demand and also keep our costs at a minimum. We believe the Personalized Greeting Service will appeal to our young-subscriber segment and keep them satisfied with the latest content on the market."

Cesare Avenia, President and Head of Market Unit Italy, Ericsson, says, 3 Italy is an innovative and important operator, and Ericsson is proud to extend its partnership with the company even further. "Ringback Tones make up one of the new attractive services that many consumers desire. Ericsson has a unique ability to bring the technology and content together for the ultimate solution for the operator and consumers," he says.

The agreement makes Ericsson responsible for the end-to-end systems integration, as well as hosting and day-to-day management of the platform. The service is based on NMS Communications' (NASDAQ: NMSS) MyCaller(TM) application and will be hosted from Ericsson's operations center in Rome.

This contract is an extension of the partnership between Ericsson and 3 Italy. At the beginning of this year the two companies signed a five-year managed services contract for the overall management of 3 Italy's 3G network.

Ericsson's hosting solutions for enablers, content and applications are part of its industry-leading managed services offering. Operators are offered content packages for mobile portals within five different categories: music, multiplayer gaming, and video and multimedia subscriptions and downloads. Operators can offer consumers a series of portals prepackaged with content from Ericsson partners including SonyBMG, EMI, Warner Music International, Napster, Bloomberg, Kamera, FashionTv, Mixipix and others.

 

 

Ericsson Media Relations

Phone: +46 8 719 6992

E-mail: press.relations@ericsson.com

 

3 Italy is the Mobile Media Company controlled by the Hutchison Whampoa Group, the primary shareholder of 3 Italia (94,5%). Its other shareholders are NHS Investments (S.A. San Paolo IMI), RCS Mediagroup, Gemina and 3G Mobile Investments (Franco Bernabé Group). 3 Italy won a UMTS license in Italy in October 2000, commenced offering of its services in March 2003 and is now the leader in the UMTS market in Italy, offering converged media, information and telephony services providing live video calls, multimedia content and entertainment while on the move.

 

Ericsson has the telecom industry's most comprehensive managed services offerings, ranging from designing, building, operating and managing day-to-day operations of a customer's network, to hosting service applications and enablers, as well as providing network coverage and capacity on demand.  As the undisputed leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced more than 55 managed services contracts with operators worldwide since 2002.  In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve more than 47 million subscribers worldwide.