It is a voice/IVR social networking product that enables subscribers to setup profiles and initiate anonymous or declared voice chat sessions with people who match their interests/profiles. It also has a smartphone app and supports both voice and SMS chat on the same chat id. A unique feature is integration to the web to enable subscribers to friends on the internet. Also has Facebook integration so voice clips can be directly posted to Facebook account.

BRG:

• Mobile Coverage on borders overlap across countries and license areas.
• Subscribers living in the vicinity of the border areas have access to roaming   coverage in their home network.
• Roaming coverage in home network areas cause customers to inadvertently latch on to roaming network.

Mobile operators face tremendous challenges in the growth of their revenue streams, in the face of increasing competition and pricing pressures. It is thus extremely important to control the networks that the subscriber registers, albeit without degradation of service quality.

Many home networks overlap with either national roaming partners within the same country or international roaming partners at the borders (which could be land or ocean) of neighboring countries. For better services, customer care and cost reduction for both home network operators and subscribers, home networks would want to retain their own customers whenever their networks have coverage.

To address the above technical challenge, Telcovas offers BRG(Border Roaming Gateway) solution

Business Support System or (BSS) facilitates the relationship of service providers with their customers. BSS consists of the components that Telcovas uses to run its business operations towards customers.

BSS is more software oriented which deals with processes like taking orders from customer, ensuring that order is completed, processing the bills, and collecting the payment. BSS can be thought of the customer facing system.

Four Main Processes of BSS are:

•  Product Management
• Customer Management
• Order Management
• Revenue Management

The major component of BSS is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Customer can interact to CRM through various channels. These channels can be Call center, USSD, Company Portal, SMS, Email, Live Chat, Social Media, Company Store, Self-Service Kiosk, etc.

The course covers good learning on importance of CRM in telecom business model. CRM provides one central platform for Sales, Marketing, Customer Service Team, etc. to give complete visibility into business and it also helps different teams to work together on one unified platform to grow leads, identify opportunities, close deals, and, support customers.

Functionalities of CRM are:

• Marketing Management
• Sales Management
• Customer Information Management
• Service Request
• Service Complaint, and
• Customer Enquiry

We work with CSPs in specific areas of fraud where we deliver significant incremental value, by taking a fundamentally different approach to that of existing fraud solutions.

• We can discover fraud you didn’t know about.
• We can detect and stop it in real time.
• We can complement and augment your existing systems.
• We can help you to prevent fraud rather than manage it.

With the rapid mass market proliferation of mobile subscribers and the increasing use of mobile data, especially video, Mobile operators require a strong content management system that can supportthe entire range of content types and deliver it across multiple channels like SMS, MMS, USSD, WAP, Voice/IVR and the mobile internet.

TelcoVAS’s Content Management System (CMS) is a flexible and scalable platform that enablesmulti channel deployment of content based value added services, provisioning and billing control of various content providers (like pay per download, pay per access, subscription packs, bundles) and a powerful content adaptation engine across different media and devices.

Roam like Local instead of Roam Like Home.
Teleservices offering a customised solution and platform offer for ECOWAS free roaming initiative.

Key Highlights of our Solution are:
1. Compliant to ECOWAS regulations
2. Modular Architecture (Provision to use existing services like Welcome_SMS if available)
3. E2E closed loop system :

For Customers:
a. Welcome_SMS available to spread awareness supported by Unicode (to enable various dialects used)
b.Notifications at intervals to share information on stages of Roamfree packs.
c.Transparency on charging and tariff

For Operators:
a. Single GW that enables Mobility management
b. For Prepaid : E2E triggers and request to IN (Billing system) to enable/disable packs
c. Messaging  and awareness for Prepaid and Postpaid customers
d. For Postpaid : Notifying customers and enabling TABS during reconciliation
e. Internal Counters per subscriber to track Roaming Free offerings
f. Smart UI for Operators to enable / disable Free Roaming Pack with Roaming Partners
g. ISO27001 Security Standards Compliant
h. On-Premise /VM/ Hybrid ( On-Premise + Cloud) based deployment model available
i. CAPEX / Subscription Commercial Model available
j. Fraud and Security compliant

Over the last few years, the mobile subscriber base has surged – especially in emerging markets with large populations. The online wave of social applications like Facebook, Twitter, Web/Internet Email and Chat have also fuelled a need for savvy mobile value added services which require the mobile operators to constantly innovate. At the same time, scarcity of competent manpower and their demand from competing mobile operator puts a lot of stress on operators’ ability to manage the service quality to their subscribers. The multiplicity of VAS providers/applications and their integration to backend billing, OSS, customer care systems also consumes a lot of effort and time.

TelcoVAS has been at the forefront of the VAS market, delivering cutting edge voice, messaging, data/3G/WAP and billing/OSS solutions to more than 80 mobile operators across the globe. Leveraging the VAS capability and the next generation operations 24 X 7 NOC, TelcoVAS has established a Managed VAS practice which can enable mobile operators to outsource VAS deployment, integration, management and operations, allowing them to focus on their core competencies. Without having to worry about hiring, retaining and managing VAS staff, mobile operators can achieve reduced time to market, higher customer satisfaction and revenue growth.

Elements of Managed VAS Service

VAS Strategy
TelcoVAS has a panel of industry experts who work closely with mobile operators to establish a VAS strategy, based on market requirements. An audit is conducted and then a recommendation is made for the appropriate VAS products to be deployed.

VAS Deployment and Integration
TelcoVAS provides a middleware which smoothens the integration of VAS products to backend systems for postpaid billing, prepaid billing, customer care and service management.

End-to-end Service Management
Teleservices provides service management of all VAS products – service uptime, alarms handling, regular updates/reports for smooth business operations. Our team monitors alarms and faults from the operator’s nodes as well as from the VAS providers’ systems to ensure timely and proactive escalation and resolution of issues.

Single Point of Contact for Vendors
Teleservices is the single point of contact for all VAS providers and performs regular health checks, coordinates maintenance/warranty and ensures smooth delivery of all VAS services.

24 X 7 operations/management
Through a unique onsite/offsite delivery model, Teleservices manages the configuration and delivery of VAS services. The 24 X 7 offsite team of experts also share best practices and suggestions for improving the performance of VAS services. At the same time, competitive information is secured through stringent NDAs/agreements with Teleservices.

Benefits

• Enhanced Service Performance Levels
• Reduced cost of operations
• Reduced time to market for VAS services – edge over competitors
• Higher revenue and market share through streamlined operations and delivery

Quick response time to market needs – dashboards and reports – quick feedback loop on subscriber response to VAS services.

Going beyond the boundaries of traditional static social marketing campaigns, TelcoVAS Facebook Integration Platform enables Operators to create dynamic, timely and focused interaction with its customers, providing and complementing the key success elements of viral marketing:

• Real time integration with OSS/BSS elements like Billing, Customer Care or Business Intelligence
• User friendly, non technical and cost efficient tool that enables marketing professionals to unleash their creativity andexperiment as many campaigns as one can think of
• Up-sell opportunities – by leveraging the great wealth of profiling resources made available by the social networks, Operators can provide customer with personalized services or products available in its friendly Facebook interface but chargeable on their mobile account (e.g. ring back tone, ring tones, data bundles, etc.)
• Enhanced customer care functionalities that are usually available only in the mobile environment, through a new, real-time and efficient channel
• Dormant customers reactivation – by  keeping them informed of recent promotional activities within a friendly interface even if they are not using their services lately.

Homezone is a tariff option that provides subscribers with more affordable rates in their preferred location where they spend the most of their time (office, school, home etc) at a minimal daily access fee. Subscribers can easily activate/deactivate the Homezone tariff plan any time using SMS, USSD (for GSM only) or IVR channels. For instance, to activate, subscriber can send a USSD *240# from their Homezone (the preferred location ) and they can immediately start getting a discount of 25 % on calls and SMS. Alternately they can send an SMS to 240 with HZONE ACT or dial an IVR.

Benefits

• More incoming calls from other operators and higher termination revenue
• More churn from other competing operators
• Loyalty and stickiness in subscriber base
• Higher revenue and market share

In countries where Calling Party Pays (CPP) is implemented, the Caller will pay for the calloriginating and call terminating network cost. With this by increasing the call minutes thata telecom operator can receive from other local operators, the telecom operator canincrease their revenues. As a motivational factor to increase such incoming calls, thetelecom operator can launch innovative service like Incoming Call Bonus.Incoming Call Bonus (ICB) service gives an incentive to a subscriber for receiving calls. Thisincreases the satisfaction of the telecom subscriber, when the subscriber sees the additionalBonus points after each incoming call. Also the telecom operators use this service as amarket differentiator in today’s highly competitive telecom industry.

Incoming Call Bonus service application uses CDR generated at the MSC/SSP or IN of thetelecom operator. By processing these files, the ICB application finds out, Calling party, Called party, Call direction and Duration of the call. When the call is an Incoming call, the ICB application further processes the CDRs toidentify the Call Origination network and Duration of the call, and based on the Bonusapplication rules defined in the ICB application by the system administration, the ICBapplication applies a credit back (TopUP) to the Called party account.

Over the last few years, competition has hugely intensified for mobile operators. The operators with clout often increase local termination rates, making it expensive for the subscribers of the smaller operators. To retain their subscriber base, mobile operators need to think of innovative ways to get more incoming calls from other operators (for termination revenue). Bonus (monetary or free calls) on incoming calls rewards subscribers for receiving in coming calls, aids in their retention and incentivizes subscribers of other operators to churn. The bonus for the calls can be immediate (credited to the prepaid account) or can be in terms of free calls/minutes and computed/notified once every day.

i-PayS: An integrated payment system is designed for operator business partners.

i-PayS enables Airtime transfer of any amount at anytime via electronic mediums through STK, SMS, USSD, Banks or Web.

It is integrated payment solution(Postpaid Bill Payment, Utility Bill pymt, Electricity Bill pymt.

All operations are done through a mobile handset or Web interface (Business users).

Following benefits to Operators:

• Freedom from logistics
• i-PayS reduces the huge cost on logistics of physical voucher
• Reduced cost per transaction
• Flexible TopUp denominations which is not possible in case of physical vouchers
• Secured transactions over electronic medium
• Enhanced geographical penetration
• Reduced time to reach market
• Real time transfer of talk time
• Ease to distribute talk time to prepaid subscribers through distribution partners (Refer to the for details)
• Check the unethical business practice in the market
• Provides the channel members with the following benefits
• Availability of ‘stock’ at all times
• Better control over the distribution network

Laughter challenge is a service where subscribers share jokes and funny statements/stories on an IVR portal and share it with friends and family to vote on social media. The most liked 10 jokes are announced on radio/TV /social media and depending on the number of votes, the Laughter Winner is declared on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

General Application Flow:

1. User dials a short code and registers for the service.

2. IVR plays announcement to record a joke and share with friends and family to vote.

3. User records his joke and application sends him an SMS with a direct access code DAC which is the unique code to access the joke. The same SMS can be shared with friends and family to vote for his recorded joke and his friends can listen to it by dialing the DAC and sharing it further.

4. Once the user has recorded his own joke in his own voice the application will also give him an option on IVR itself to enter the mobile no of his friends and family to push the DAC link for voting .

5. The recipient of the SMS dials the direct access code of the recorded song to listen to the joke in the users own voice and vote for the same .They also can share the same DAC with other friends for voting and sharing further.

6. Additionally the user can also post the same recorded joke on social media site for voting and sharing.

7.   Application will do the rating of the recorded song based on no of votes received from his friends and family and announces the winner weekly /monthly.

Benefits to Telecom Operator:

1. Subscription Revenue.

2. IVR voice revenue.

3. Revenue on voting and sharing on a special rate on SMS.

What Does VPMN Need ?

• Increase data usage of in roamer
• Increase wholesale revenue
• Reduce recurring operational cost

What Does HPMN Need?

• Increase customer experience by providing good QoS
• Hence increase data usage
• Increase Retail Revenue
• Reduce recurring operational cost

What Subscribers Need?

• Need Data throughput as good as Home

VPMN Benefits

• Increases usage due to higher speeds
• Increase wholesale revenue
• GRX operational cost savings

HPMN Benefits

• Can guarantee High speed internet in deploying country
• Increases customer experience
• Increases usage
• Increase retails revenue
• GRX operational cost savings

Subscriber Benefit

Data throughput as good as Home.

It allows users to change their voice and speak to friends in Funny Voices :-

• Male To Female
• Female to Male
• Cartoon
• Monster
• King Voice
• Donald Duck
• Mickey Mouse
• Naughty Kid
• Alien

40 Other Exciting Voices

The subscriber makes a call to the designated short code and chooses the voice type after which he selects the caller number. Application patches the call with the other party and lets both users speak in real‐time. The application also provides the B party with an option to select and change his voice.

It is integrated to social media like all other TelcoVAS products. The subscriber can post his recorded conversation on his Facebook timeline.

After the call, aWAPLink is sent to theuserseekinghisFacebookcredentials.Onprovidingthesame,the recording is postedonhisFacebook timeline.

The service is very simple to use. Users can subscribe by USSD (like dialing *170*100# or by calling the IVR or sending an SMS to the service assigned short code. Once subscribed, the user receives an SMS confirming the subscription. He can then call people on any network by dialing the service short code followed by the number he wished to call. He will hear a voice prompt informing the voice and background options before the call is connected.

Mobile Karaoke is an innovative Value added service, which allows mobile subscribers to sing and record a Karaoke song using any mobile phone. It uses the basic channels like USSD and IVR to provide mass market access and an intuitive user interface. A patent filed algorithm allows for rating of the recorded songs against the original songs to give the subscriber an idea of how well he sang. The subscriber can play single player or Multiplayer and share the recorded song on Facebook and other social media. The system also maintains a “leaderboard” which can be used to give awards for the best singer. Subscribers can access their recorded songs any time and share them with friends and as Voice SMS. This can be directly played on Television as well.

This is an entertainment service, driven by music and facilitates expression of feelings for loved ones. It is also used in some countries as a means for identifying young singers by TV channels.

Subscribers can pick the music of their choice from comprehensive music database, depending upon their mood or occasion to sing and dedicate.

Subscriber can save the song sung by him/her on the system and can enjoy the below services.

1. Upload the Song what they have sung on Social media sites: Facebook, Twitter etc.

2. Make the song their caller ring back tune.

3. Dedicate the song to someone special

Operator Benefits

• Increased Airtime Revenue
• Subscription Based Revenue
• Revenues through more SMS usage
• Service differentiators, Marketing Tool

User Benefits

• New way to express feelings.
• Personalization and another conduit to social networks.
• A way to identify young, budding singers

AM and FM radio is generally available in major cities and is not available for outlying and rural areas. Also subscribers belong to different cultures and communities and have a desire for radio of different countries (expats need their own country radio, specific communities need to hear their own radio, Sports fans need to hear sports commentary). The product provides an IVR based access to streaming regional and international radio content. Subscribers spend hours listening to radio thus contributing to voice revenue. On any incoming call, the radio is paused and then continued after the call. The product also provides an easy to use smartphone app for Apple and Android phone users.

Now with Mobile Wallet our customers will not only be able to send airtime to their friends and family but also manage their money from their mobile phone wherever they are, whenever they want. This service is provisioned by Operator in partnership with Financial Institutions

With Mobile Wallet you can do the following:

• Send airtime to friends and family
• Transfer virtual money to registered Mobile Wallet account
• Pay bills
• Receive virtual money to your Mobile Wallet account
• Receive funds without sharing you phone number (nickname functionality)
• Send money from Mobile Wallet account to your bank account and vice versa
• Perform Cash-in/Cash-out activities
• Be in control of your transaction with reports and balance check feature and change password feature

Mobile Wallet is:

• Secure
• No need to carry cash
• Safe way send money to friends and family in East Africa
• Password is needed for each transaction
• Convenient – available to you 24/7
• Simple Mobile Wallet style menu
• Easily accessible from your phone menu

Music Voice SMS is a unique messaging product that will allow your customers to personalize their voice messages with songs, making the message exciting and communicative by enabling them to package their personal style and emotion in their message. It can be used to send greetings with music to friends and family, subsidizing the voice messages by adding audio ads or for enterprise adverts.

1. When a person enters a phone number for any online transaction, he is given a phone number to dial from the phone number he entered online within a given time say next 20 minutes. The pop up clearly mentions that as soon the phone rings, it will be disconnected just after capturing the Caller ID and the call will not be charged!
   
   
2. The person calls the number. The IVR/Voice SMS server receiving the call will capture the Caller ID and match it with the number entered in the online form. If it matches, the phone number will be verified and the registration would be accepted.
   
   
3. The IVR can now make an outbound call to inform that the registration is accepted and now he can proceed with his registration or any other purpose of the online form submission.

A PRI connection with say 100 numbers in continuity can be used. These 100 numbers could be used in random to get missed calls from different users in order to increase secrecy as well as security.

• Pay4SMS enables the receiver to pay for the SMS eg. Father pays for son’s SMS – Pay4ME is for collect calls while Pay4SMS is for collect SMS.
  
  
• GiftSMS enables a mobile subscriber to gift a SMS reply to his friend or colleague by just inserting a word “gift” at the start of the message. Our SMS router sends the SMS to receiver with the message “the response to this SMS is gifted by subscriber number +6522355666”. 

In call tunes (Background Music), pre call tunes (customised ring back tones)

In call tunes or Background Music is the music played during a call in the background often to set the mood. The subscriber can create his own ambience during a call by playing music in the background. The service supports both prepaid and postpaid subscribers and all phones including entry level phones. It does NOT require any pre requisite for use, allowing the subscriber to choose the In Call tune with a simple IVR or USSD command. It is a network-based solution, which works independent of both handset and SIM card.

The service works very well for the youth segment.

The Pre Call Tunes (CRBT) is a very common and popular value added service. Teleservices provides CRBT for A party (caller can hear CRBT of his choice instead of the called party) and also the ability to have a juke box where a different CRBT is played on each call from a “juke box” or by time of the day. The key advantage of using TelcoVASCRBT is the high level of penetration it offers thus generating additional revenue. Most CRBT solutions don’t achieve a service penetration higher than 15-18 % of the base and around 0.4 song download per subscriber per month. Teleservices has achieved up to 30% service penetration in some cases. This is accomplished through:

• Service analytics to gauge the preferences of subscribers and push relevant ring back tones.
• Viral usage – subscribers get rewarded for recommending their friends.
• Making it more personalized; like by launching First Name Tune which is a self-recorded Name Tune played as ring back tone instead of songs to callers. This can also be used by small enterprises as a company intro message (without requiring voice mail greeting).
• Integrating the service with other TelcoVAS products like Mobile Karaoke where the subscriber records a song in his voice and makes it his ring back tone or forwards to a friend using Voice SMS and the receiver automatically clicks and makes it his ring back tone!
• Contextual A Party RBT creates an opportunity to offer content based service to A Party which plays content with respect to the previous content played to the user.
• Advertisement RBT – Service can be given free of charge to user and sponsor pays for the RBT subscription.

Roaming is a very key element of the business of GSM mobile operators and contributes as much as 10-15 % of the revenue for some operators.  It is also higher margin that domestic business where competitors battle on price. Due to manual processes and inability to keep the network (VLR/MSC/SGSN) updated with the changes in the IR 21 files from roaming partners, operators lose a lot of revenue. When there are multiple switch vendors, the situation is more complicated. With these inconsistencies, subscribers are not be able to register/attach, unable to make calls and calls may be allowed but not billable. On average, operators stand to lose upto 10 % of their roaming revenue due to inconsistencies in network/switch/SGSN settings and the IR21 data. Roaming subscribers are unable to make and receive calls and use data causing revenue loss.

This is a comprehensive Cloud based IR21 update solution, that tracks the changes in the IR21 file updates and the network data. It Identifies all  incorrect SCCP Configurations/ routings, enables assigning tasks to the concerned Switch manager and tracks the inconsistencies till they are rectified. Deployed in over 20 operators, on average it has helped customers gain  5-10 % additional roaming revenue. It supports all major switch manufacturers.

A well-crafted intuitive GUI allows updation of IR21 files (XML format) and Switch files in a repository, comparing of changes and viewing audit results. Network inconsistencies are pointed out with details.

RoamPolicy, Policy based Service Controller from Telcovas helps operators exercise control in real-time and comply with the regulatory requirements on Roaming Fraud Prevention. The solution provides operators with real-time control on the Outbound and Inbound Roamers at 3 points viz Registration time, Service Access time and On Usage volume exceeding configured limits. This control provides the operators with a wide range of options to configure actions such as sending SMS/E-mail alerts to operator’s admin to prevent fraud, temporarily suspending service with option to resume and service barring.

Inbound roaming traffic is an attractive source of high margin revenues for many operators. However, over the last couple of years, many operators have deployed Steering of Roaming (SoR) applications that try to keep the roamers within the group or onto preferred partner networks. In most cases, in order to keep the roaming relationship with the non-preferred operators, the SoR is not applied to all out-roamers but only to a certain percentage.

To reduce the loss of inbound roaming revenue due to a HPMN SoR, VPMNs need some tool or method by which they can safe guard their business of inbound roaming. Telcovas Seamless Capture^TM can reduce this loss by using the powerful methods of detecting and acting against the specific HPMNs.

SMS Box allows corporate customers to send SMS and Bulk SMS directly from MS Office/Outlook/Word/Excel and even Facebook seamlessly to their contacts. Greatly enhances SMS revenue and makes it as ubiquitous as email.

MMS Box is an award winning product that:

• Enables you to move Bulk SMS traffic from corporate customers to higher ARPU MMS traffic.
• Provides an inbuilt MMSC which enables even mass market subscribers to easily compose and send MMS to their Outlook/Web contact lists in seconds.
• Enables MMS-Email, MMS-Facebook integration so MMS can be directly sent to Facebook account.
• MMS can also be composed and sent from Facebook.
• Enables multimedia coupons, animated business cards, greeting cards, Movie trailer clips, matchmaking and dating services, eye-catching advertising.

As the price for MMS is more than 3-4 times the price of SMS, this has enabled a remarkable increase in ARPU of some of the operators we have deployed with. The product can also be used as a standalone P2P MMSC.

SMS based social networking. A group of people get a short code allocated by the operator (eg. Alumni group, School parents group, Sports club, Local Church etc.). Subscribers of the group can post information by a simple SMS to the short code. A post can then be accessed by anyone, anywhere, with any handset, by just sending an SMS with a defined character (say 0) to the subscriber’s mobile number. The service works like an SMS-based social bulletin board. Apart from regular uses like parents knowing what time kids’ match will start or for a group of friends coordinating a get together, it is also used by businesses to keep customers stay updated on their products and services via SMS.

Some of the subscribers who miss calls could be high ARPU subscribers. What if missed calls account for more than 50 % of all missed calls for high ARPU subscribers – they WILL churn. The traditional Missed Call Alert service does provide missed call alert information but subscribers on SMS.. However, in today’s connected era, subscribers spend a lot of time on social networks and many times don’t have access to their phone especially when roaming or when they are out of coverage. Social Call Connect provides missed call alert information to subscribers on social media even when they are on wi fi, travelling, out of coverage in a basement etc.. B party needs to register for the application via USSD and share his/her email/WhatsApp/Facebook account to the application. The application has a good use case for roaming where an incoming call is sent to the roaming country and then sent back to voice mail when the subscriber is unavailable. In this scenario, the application checks the subscriber is roaming and optimally routes the call to social network instead of tromboning.

Benefits to Subscriber:

• User never misses a call, even out of network or roaming/travelling
• B party gets a link to download the voice message by SMS or on Facebook ,Twitter, Email, Whatspp, Skype etc. of the registered contact of user on the service.
• Remains in touch with all calls even when travelling, out of coverage, battery dead

Benefit to Operator:

• Increases Data revenue.
• Subscription revenue
• Converts non data subscribers to data subscribers by giving the an inaugural data pack and activating their data profile.
• Increases customer loyalty

Social Voice SMS provides a direct integration to subscribers’ social networks. Voice SMS can be directly posted to social networks and vice versa.

Caller composes Voice SMS but cant send due to low balance. Application prompts caller if he wants it sponsored and on IVR confirmation, appends a 10 second voice advertisement to the voice sms and sends. Caller is not charged and called party gets Voice SMS with the 10 second voice advertisement appended.

Consumers are increasingly utilising social media in their life style. TelcoVAS Twitter Self-Care service allows customers to access, manage and update their customer account via Twitter. After completing a simple and secure sign up process, customers can send hashtag commands via Twitter’s Direct Messaging (DM) functionality to gain instant access to the most common customer service enquiries and manage various account options.

Twitter Self-Care as part of a multi-channel customer care strategy offering, which includes USSD Self care, IVR Self Care, Smartphone (Android/IOS) Self Care, which dramatically reduces the cost of handling customer care queries and helps subscribers to get anytime, anywhere access to customer care.

Subscribers just need to dial *563# to access and update their Facebook or Skype account using any NORMAL mobile phone with no data access. The operator charges a monthly fee or a usage charge.

The service supports upto 182 characters, which enables users to post short messages and updates.Also, the interface is entirely textual and relies a lot on alphanumerical inputs for navigation. An upcoming version will use Location information (through the platform) to offer Facebook Places and the ability to check-into places through USSD.

For skype, the subscriber can make a call or chat. For call, it’s a local call for him and the system connects with the contact on skype (VOIP).

The operator can also conduct contests where subscriber receives a promotional message, dials a USSD code to add a friend and the subscriber who adds maximum friends, wins a prize.

The platform supports the following features:

A group of subscribers can form a “club” or community. The community moderator/co-owners will be able to send VSMS to all the members. The Voice SMS can be scheduled for delivery in advance. Operator makes money on the multiple Voice SMS to members.

Voice SMS and Dynamic Voice SMS (direct voice SMS on receiver busy) offer a way for subscribers to send short voice messages to their friends and colleagues. Voice SMS can be stored, forwarded and replied to. System supports Voice SMS across different operators as well as International Voice SMS across countries.