One of the main revenue generators for Mobile Service Providers is the roaming user. A typical roaming user is a businessman travelling between countries, or a tourist spending a vacation abroad, taking their mobile GSM phone with them and make and receive expensive international phone calls.
Traditionally, roaming customers have been trying to search for creative ways to save on these expenses. Some of these methods included; using a notebook PC as the platform for internet-based calling or for Enterprise Soft-phone implementations, while others involve cumbersome, special dial methods, saving a portion of the costs of direct roaming.
AudioCodes and MailVision have recently partnered to offer a new approach to cost savings for roaming users, which integrates internet based calling into the mobile phone. This solution is to use a Mobile SIP Client, which further expands AudioCodes’ VoIP product offering, providing a more complete offering for the Service Provider as well as Enterprise markets.
Mailvision’s Pico is a SIP client software for advanced Smartphones such as Nokia S60, iPhone/iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices. The MailVision High Definition Mobile Soft Client can assist Service Providers to differentiate themselves by offering customers low cost roaming services using WiFi connectivity with their current handsets when travelling abroad. Enterprises can significantly lower their overall communication expenses by leveraging their existing data WiFi network and any remote WiFi network (such as airports, hotels and restaurants), by routing voice traffic to their local, hosted or managed PBX.
Service Providers using the Pico Client can integrate it into their offerings of smart phones, brand it using their name, and offer internet based roaming services to their frequent travelling customers. By offering this solution with a reduced tariff compared to the traditional TDM roaming, Service Providers can secure the revenue from the users on the move, as they don’t need to pay the roaming price to hosting Service Providers. The service is usually offered on top of public WiFi networks or as a part of a flat-fee mobile data service.
MailVision, founded in 1997 is a technology innovator in the booming Next Generation Networks (NGN) Telephony industry, developing and marketing enhanced SIP Platform Solutions for Wireless, Telcos and NexGen communication Service Providers. A variety of SIP based solutions offered by MailVision enables service providers to have an easy migration to revenue generating VoIP services. The company leads the Mobile IP revolution by implementing ground-breaking IP technologies and product solutions for Voice over Wireless and Mobile IP.
MailVision Pico is a stand-alone mobile-phone SIP Soft Client for end users, featuring standards-based presence (availability/non-availability visible), high quality voice in multiple codec formats, and an intuitive, simple user interface. Pico is based on the latest Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standards, and is ready for deployment in large scale cellular networks.
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Pico Unique Differentiators:
- Branded SIP Mobile Clients designed to meet Service Provider requirements
- Wide interoperability with all major Class 5 SIP Softswitch players
- Send text messages over VoIP data networks (WiFi and Cellular Data)
- Enables users to implement GUI handset for Mobile VoIP calls and SMS messaging
- Dozens of deployments in the last 12 months
- Pico uses the mobile phone’s existing address book contacts - no modification needed, and no duplication of contacts
- Pico provides the ability to pre-configure and lock the Service Provider’s configuration, thereby facilitating configuration and eliminating risk of possible customer fraud
- Pico Distribution Server allows for easy provisioning, distribution, management and monitoring of the SIP Mobile Clients
The MailVision HD VoIP enabled Mobile Soft Client is a natural addition to AudioCodes’ media gateway, media server and recently announced IP Phone product lines. These additions enable a new dimension of voice call quality and clarity, and a further expansion of AudioCodes’ VoIP product offering while providing a more complete solution for the enterprise and service provider markets. Additionally, AudioCodes is able to address the rapidly expanding market for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) with the latest developments in High Definition (HD) VoIP technology.