Effortel SA is a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) providing a platform-based transaction processing and management services for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO), and acts as an MVNO itself in partnership with Carrefour

Carrefour

Carrefour S.A. is an international hypermarket chain headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world...

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MVNE Services:

• voice,
• SMS
  SMS
  SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
  
  ,
• roaming
  Roaming
  In wireless telecommunications, roaming is a general term referring to the extension of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered. Roaming ensures that the wireless device is kept connected to the network, without losing the...
  
  ,
• voicemail
  Voicemail
  Voicemail is a computer based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products and services, using an ordinary telephone...
  
  ,
• billing and invoicing,
• payment handling,
• financial reporting,
• sales and marketing,
• customer care and self-care support.

The subsidiary Effortel Technologies provides MVNE services to Effortel subsidiaries and to other MVNOs and MNOs.

Effortel Technologies are headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, and employs 60 people.
Effortel is offering technical solution that is designed taking into consideration CAPEX

Capital expenditure

Capital expenditures are expenditures creating future benefits. A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life extending beyond the taxable year...

 and OPEX

Operating expense

An operating expense, operating expenditure, operational expense, operational expenditure or OPEX is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system . Its counterpart, a capital expenditure , is the cost of developing or providing non-consumable parts for the product or system...

 cost controls:

• Single and centrally managed platform;
• Integrated and able to support numerous Mobile Network Operators across the globe;
• Each MVNO can have its own service logic, tariffs, setup and processes.

Projects

Effortel is operating its own MVNO in partnership with an international retailer

Retailing

Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...

 Carrefour in 4 countries.
Projects sequence:

• Carrefour Mobile (Belgium), launched in February 2006, network Base (KPN);
• Uno Mobile (Italy), launched in June 2007, network Vodafone Italia
  Vodafone Italy
  Vodafone Italia is an Italian mobile telephony operator. The company has 31,000,000 customers and a market share of 33.4%, placing it just behind TIM...
  
  ;
• Carrefour Mova (Poland), launched in April 2008, network Polkomtel;
• Carrefour Telecom (Taiwan), launched in November 2008, network Chunghwa Telecom
  Chunghwa Telecom
  Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunications company in Taiwan. It has its headquarters in Zhongzheng District, Taipei on the remains of the old Taipei Prison.- History :...
  
  .

Effortel Technologies is also serving three other MVNOs - Daily Telecom in Italy, FM Group Mobile in Poland, and Samatel in Oman.

Total number of Effortel customers is over 1 million.

Platform Architecture

Effortel Technologies platform is based on Amdocs

Amdocs

Amdocs Limited is a provider of software and services for billing, customer relationship management , operations support systems...

 Compact Convergence suite. It provides the elements required for technical operation of MVNO - real time billing for both prepaid

Prepaid

Prepaid refers to services paid for in advance. Examples include postage stamps, tolls, transit cards like the Greater London Oyster card, pay as you go cell phones, and stored-value cards such as gift cards and preloaded credit cards like American Express...

 and postpaid

Postpaid

Post Paid: A model of cellular service whereby the customer is charged for usage in the prior month , and hence does not feature any limitations on volume of service used...

, reporting, monitoring, invoicing, dunning, reconciliation

Reconciliation

Reconciliation may variously refer to:* Bank reconciliation* Truth and reconciliation commission-Religion:* Sacrament of Penance , also known as Reconciliation...

, order management, Subscriber Identity Module

Subscriber Identity Module

A subscriber identity module or subscriber identification module is an integrated circuit that securely stores the International Mobile Subscriber Identity and the related key used to identify and authenticate subscriber on mobile telephony devices .A SIM is held on a removable SIM card, which...

 management, Mobile number portability

Mobile number portability

Mobile number portability enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.- General overview :MNP is implemented in different ways across the globe...

 support, Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...

, web self-care. Effortel Technologies owns Point of sale

Point of sale

Point of sale or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs...

 tools, enabling full POS-based postpaid signup process - ID check, number choosing, credit check, document management.

The platform can work with GSM, UMTS

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System is a third generation mobile cellular technology for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed by the 3GPP , UMTS is a component of the International Telecommunications Union IMT-2000 standard set and compares with the CDMA2000 standard set for...

, CDMA

Code division multiple access

Code division multiple access is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne, CDMA2000 and WCDMA , which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access...

, WiMax

WiMAX

WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...

 networks and is compliant with ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is an independent, non-profit, standardization organization in the telecommunications industry in Europe, with worldwide projection...

 and NEBS standards.

The platform is open in terms of 3rd party integrations over web API

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

’s or SOAP

SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...

/XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

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The platform is hosted in Level3 top-security hosting facility in Brussels, Belgium.

Network Architecture: Integration with Mobile Network Operators

Effortel Technologies platform is integrated with 6 mobile operators: KPN

KPN

KPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company, including both 2G and 3G mobile operations...

 in Belgium, Vodafone

Vodafone Italy

Vodafone Italia is an Italian mobile telephony operator. The company has 31,000,000 customers and a market share of 33.4%, placing it just behind TIM...

 in Italy, Polkomtel in Poland, Chunghwa Telecom

Chunghwa Telecom

Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunications company in Taiwan. It has its headquarters in Zhongzheng District, Taipei on the remains of the old Taipei Prison.- History :...

 in Taiwan, Nawras

Nawras

Nawras is a mobile communications provider in the Sultanate of Oman. The services were commercially launched on 16 March 2005 in the market previously occupied by a sole operator Omantel. In November 2008 Nawras was awarded a license to operate fixed services as well wireless services...

 in Oman and Bouygues

Bouygues Télécom (company)

Bouygues Telecom is a French mobile phone and Internet service provider company, part of the Bouygues group. Its headquarters, designed by Arquitectonica, are located at the border of Paris and Issy-les-Moulineaux near the River Seine....

 in France.

The platform in Brussels is performing call control functions over SS7 signaling. Subscriber accounts, balances, data, call records are held and managed on the platform in Brussels. IVR

Interactive voice response

Interactive voice response is a technology that allows a computer to interact with humans through the use of voice and DTMF keypad inputs....

 and Voicemail

Voicemail

Voicemail is a computer based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products and services, using an ordinary telephone...

 systems are installed locally to avoid high-bandwidth

Bandwidth (computing)

In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...

 voice traffic between the platform in Belgium and MVNOs in other countries. Effortel is able to launch MVNO in approximately 6 months.

Currently the platform has been integrated with networks built on elements from Nokia Siemens

Nokia Siemens Networks

Nokia Siemens Networks is a global data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland. It is a joint venture between Nokia of Finland and Siemens of Germany...

, Ericsson

Ericsson

Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...

, Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

, Huawei

Huawei

Huawei is a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China...

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