STOCKHOLM, May 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
New platform upgrades BSS processes, eliminates unnecessary systems, reduces operational costs and provides a fast, reliable service enablement platform
Vodacom, South Africa's leading telecommunications company, has implemented the MediationZone platform from DigitalRoute, the leading provider of mediation solutions globally. MediationZone is transforming the data collection and management component of Vodacom's BSS infrastructure. As a result, the Service Provider will reduce operating costs, benefit from increased self-sufficiency, and be in position to enable new service offerings with shorter-times-to-market, by leveraging the functional advantages delivered by DigitalRoute. The speed and agility that MediationZone provides are critical components for success in today's highly competitive telecoms market.
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MediationZone was selected to replace a legacy solution that Vodacom had relied on for over a decade but which was reaching the end of its shelf life. Vodacom was especially spurred to investigate replacement alternatives as the legacy product headed towards its processing capacity and the cost of the hardware upgrades, in the region of 100 million SA Rand, necessary to extend this were prohibitive.
After reviewing a number of alternative approaches, Vodacom selected DigitalRoute after noting that the company was both a market-leader in mediation and its platform met all of Vodacom's key functional requirements. Reference visits where MediationZone was seen delivering results at other Tier 1 sites were also influential plus it quickly became apparent that DigitalRoute was a cost-effective option. Currently with over 300 implementations around the globe, MediationZone is unrivalled in its high user satisfaction rates.
The transformation, which took into account mediation for all Vodacom's lines of business, was staged over approximately a 14 month period with the first phase going live in as little as eight months. At its conclusion, Vodacom was feeding some 42 million Packet Data Network gateway events and up to 60 million CDRs a day into MediationZone, sourced from 25 data streams pulled from elements across its entire network.
Vodacom has been delighted with the outcome of the complex but smooth-running project. Keith Kriel, manager - Mediation Application Development at Vodacom notes: "from the start, we were impressed by DigitalRoute's expert knowledge of mediation. What enhanced even this was the way its team worked with our team. Despite a large number of people involved in a complex project, common interests and shared benefits always stayed to the fore. Our transformation was driven by the desire that all parties touched by mediation within Vodacom would benefit from the new solution, and they have."
According to Vodacom manager - Mediation Applications Support Ferouzah van der Schyff, "the magnitude of the MZ Solution transformation project was significant, not only in terms of on-boarding or migration of all data streams from the legacy Mediation Applications to MZ, but also in terms of the decoding and business processing rules that had accumulated over a decade. The performance benefits resulting from the new solution architecture were immediately apparent, allowing for ease of tuning with the quick introduction of parallel collection, processing and distribution workflows. Additionally, the passionate collaboration between both Vodacom and DigitalRoute resources to resolve initial performance bottlenecks was invaluable."
Concludes Eben Westraadt, Information Services Executive Manager, Vodacom, "The transformation of our mediation infrastructure has been both impressive and highly successful. We have reduced times-to- market for new products and services and we have also reduced unnecessary development work as a result of MediationZone's architecture. Today, if there's a business-critical requirement we are confident we can deploy it without delay."
He adds, "the advantages of DigitalRoute have thus been immediate and substantial. We've also been able to de- commission a number of other systems. We now have fewer databases to maintain. Our architecture is simpler and our efficiency has improved. In fact, the introduction of MediationZone has promoted a shift to a better architecture across our entire BSS infrastructure."
Noted Johan Bergh, CEO, DigitalRoute, "we are delighted to welcome Vodacom both to the DigitalRoute customer family and also to extend our important relationship with the Vodacom group. The value that MediationZone brings to Communications Service Providers worldwide, in this deployment as the backbone of a critical IT transformation, is both proven and extensive."
About DigitalRoute:
DigitalRoute has been providing new approaches to enterprise data management since 1999. Its software platform offers high throughput and provides a unique degree of user configurability, processing all usage and statistical data extracted from the networks, including both billable and non-billable events. This means customers gain greater cost efficiencies, improved times-to-market for new service offerings, the ability to monetise any data, and the means to enhance end-customer satisfaction. DigitalRoute makes network events available to the right systems in the right formats in the most appropriate volumes at the required times, without losing a single bit. This is the foundation from which multiple, mission-critical use-cases can be addressed in the areas of Online Control and Data Processing.
Over 300 leading companies worldwide actively use DigitalRoute technology to meet their data management needs, including a number of OEM partners who use our platform as a central part of their own offerings. DigitalRoute is built on the core values of Expertise, Open- Mindedness and Commitment. With close to 200 employees, the company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with regional offices in Gothenburg, Atlanta, and Kuala Lumpur. DigitalRoute is a venture-backed, privately held company.
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