Upgrade Your Platform, Expand Your Revenue

Verso solutions expand a C&W Panama revenue base and growth horizons.

Cable and Wireless, with customers in more than 80 countries, spanning 130 years of history, maintains extensive communications assets throughout the globe to provide local, long distance, international, and cellular services to residential and business customers.

The Challenge and Opportunity

Cable and Wireless Panama was facing several critical challenges at a time when its network infrastructure was already overburdened. Deregulation and technological advancements in VoIP and wireline services had reduced barriers to entry in those markets. A growing demand for ADSL service to support residential Internet access had also attracted a host of new competitors.

In addition, demand for prepaid calling services was on the rise. Low household income in this region has traditionally limited consumer access to residential telephone service, so a substantial portion of the company's customer base was unable to maintain long-term commitments to a post-paid service model.

Cable and Wireless Panama offered prepaid fixed-line and calling card services, but the platforms supporting each had reached maximum capacity, causing a substantial decline in quality of service (QoS). As a result, the carrier was losing revenue from uncompleted and lost calls, and customers were defecting to competitors.

The Solution

In response, the company requested proposals from several best-in-class organizations for a major network infrastructure upgrade to increase capacity, ensure scalability, and establish support for a broader range of services for business and residential customers alike. In addition, the carrier wanted the benefits of a platform for service delivery that could also be used as a marketing tool.

Some of the company's platform requirements included:

• The ability to integrate directly with the existing TDM network
• Prepaid services spanning TDM and IP environments as well as voice and data networks
• Marketing functionality
• Simultaneous support for ADSL, prepaid services, and calling centers
• True carrier class reliability (99.999% uptime)

Verso Technologies was offered the opportunity to present and bid a comprehensive solution to the incumbent carrier through an equipment vendor that was already familiar with our carrier solutions platform and capabilities. The bid prepared and submitted met or exceeded all customer requirements. NOTE: A high level depiction of the overall systems solution and the Verso bid content is shown below.

Based on the requirements, the Verso team recommended a system configuration in which Verso I-Master^® applications would become the cornerstone of a new platform for service delivery. I-Master provides bundled voice and data services that increase revenues and customer loyalty while maintaining the revenue assurance of the prepaid model. After an extended review of its needs and the available options, the company chose Verso to drive the upgrade and expansion of its communications infrastructure.

The carrier was particularly attracted to I-Master's enhanced Integrated Voice Response (IVR) applications, which opened the door to a variety of new services with strong consumer appeal, including:

• Automatic message delivery on uncompleted calls
• Alarm/reminder service
• Speed dialing
• Streaming audio (sports, news, weather, etc.)
• Third-party services (directory assistance, tourist information, travel assistance, etc.)

In addition, I-Master IVR offered automated survey and contest services as well as custom outdialing.

Most attractive to the carrier was the fact that all of these services were 'selectable' by customers via the Internet, providing the carrier with a consumer-centric portal. Prepaid calling card customers, for example, can access a special Web site (either at home or, in many cases, at a local Internet cafe) where they specify which applications they wish to include in their calling card service.

In accordance with Verso's recommendations, C&W Panama transferred the bulk of its traffic to the I-Master platform, freeing up its GSM capacity to handle substantially higher prepaid cellular call volumes. The legacy TDM system is now scheduled for retirement.

The Results

After implementation, the carrier's new configuration is processing up to 75 calls per second and 100,000 busy hour call attempts per hour. The system maintains a database of eight million calling card subscriptions, three million of which have been added since the launch of the new I-Master applications.

By virtually eliminating blocked calls, improving QoS, expanding the carrier's portfolio of consumer offerings, and providing innovative marketing capabilities through the prepaid platform, the new Verso infrastructure has led to a revenue increase of more than 25%.

Reduced capital expenditures and operating costs have also enabled the carrier to lower the minimum calling card credit increment to the equivalent of 50 cents, opening up a substantial new revenue stream from consumers who would otherwise be unable to afford access to telephone service.

With its new system configuration and the array of new services the platform has made possible, the company has reversed the outflow of customers to the competition while reaching previously untapped sources of demand. The technology has also enabled the company to streamline its cost profile. As a result, the carrier has achieved a substantial return on its investment in Verso applications and services and is already planning for another round of expansion.