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Verso Prepaid Platform Supports CVT Plans for Rapid Growth.

CVT Prepaid Solutions, based in New York, is a provider of enhanced prepaid services for both domestic and international prepaid telecommunications. As one of the largest and fastest growing companies in the prepaid calling industry, CVT markets more than 350 brands of prepaid cards at more than 60,000 points of sale throughout North America.

The Challenge and Opportunity

An outsourced solution or a new prepaid platform? This was the question CVT Prepaid Solutions considered when evaluating how to best migrate to its next generation network in order to meet ambitious expansion plans, achieve a higher level of network reliability and deliver exceptional quality to its rapidly growing customer base.

Specifically, CVT plans to more than double its business over the next 12 months without adding new operations or staff members. The existing TDM infrastructure had to be addressed to avoid hindering CVT's growth potential; it could not effectively support VoIP and SIP environments, nor could it scale to meet emerging product and service trends in the prepaid telecom market. Perhaps most critically, CVT's then-current network provider was not meeting the level of support required by CVT to ensure highly reliable service to its customers.

With the I-Master platform, CVT expects to achieve significant savings on operational and administrative costs when compared with the costs of maintaining legacy TDM equipment.

CVT quickly discovered that not one of the established outsourcing providers could offer a feature-rich prepaid solution that ensured scalability, reliability and cost effectiveness. In addition, outsourcing would only provide a "band-aid" fix and not a truly comprehensive, long-term solution required by a fast growing company. CVT needed to make a capital commitment for equipment ownership in order to meet its aggressive growth objectives and control quality of service. Once CVT decided to go with a "self-owned" platform and make the infrastructure investment, CVT outlined the required features and rating capabilities for the new prepaid solution, including SIP interoperability, scalability and an array of value-added feature offerings.

The Solution

CVT spent several months on the review process, requesting proposals from a number of best-in-class organizations, seeking a highly scalable solution robust enough to handle expected capacity increases while also establishing support for a broader range of marketable features. Familiar with the benefits of a service delivery platform, CVT sought a solution that could also be leveraged as a marketing tool while delivering unequalled quality.

Based on these requirements, Verso Technologies recommended a network design in which the Verso I-Master prepaid solution would scale and grow as required to meet or exceed CVT's growth plans. The I-Master solution offered CVT the ability to bundle voice and data services to drive increased revenues and customer loyalty while maintaining the revenue assurance of the prepaid model.

The solution specifically included the I-Master Application Server and prepaid software. The I-Master Application Server provides software-based IVR support and interoperability with any standards-compliant next generation network (NGN) softswitch platform, while the associated prepaid software application provides interactive, real-time rating and billing functions for managing prepaid and post paid services.

Well known in the industry for its distributor service and aggressive branding, CVT is a marketing savvy organization. They saw potential to leverage the I-Master's customer-centric portal. CVT was impressed with I-Master's enhanced Integrated Voice Response (IVR) applications, which presented a variety of new services with strong consumer appeal. For example, prepaid calling card suppliers can choose to select their own calling card features and applications via the Internet.

Of course, system reliability as well as tried and true operability were also fundamental in Verso's selection. "Verso offered a solution riding on well established switching technology," said Bill Hinton, Chief Operating Officer, CVT. "Verso has a proven and fully-functional solution within our particular marketplace. The solution's flexibility was an important factor in its selection. It surpassed the competition with its current feature-set and we are confident in Verso's commitment to expand upon that functionality. It was the most flexible and scalable solution we researched."

Finally, CVT recognized that Verso shared with CVT many new features on the roadmap but not yet currently available. CVT was very much in sync with I-Master's direction, purchasing the I-Master for its current capabilities and planning to evolve along with the technology and the market.

The Results

With the I-Master platform, CVT expects to achieve significant savings on operational and administrative costs when compared with the costs of maintaining legacy TDM equipment. Specifically, the company expects an 80% reduction in collocation space and power expenses, as well as reduced costs and time to implement carrier interconnection at multiple Points of Presence (POPs). Further, the company anticipates lower rollout costs for additional and geographically diverse POPs. Based on operational expenses alone CVT anticipates a return on equipment investment in just 14 to 15 months. This calculation does not consider additional revenue that will be brought in based on the platform's other marketing capabilities.

In terms of growth opportunities, CVT anticipates a significant on-going return on investment (ROI). Given the new ability to bundle services and offer users a more personalized experience with a variety of new features, CVT will increase market share, particularly in high growth regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific. Additionally, the Verso solution provides CVT with the flexibility to support customers by offering an unprecedented high level of value.

"In addition to these marketing features, we also have a highly efficient business infrastructure. Overall, the Verso platform will serve as a powerful engine for CVT's continued rapid growth, and is expected to support our plan to more than double the business within 12 months without adding resources," said Hinton.