Comverse Announces MMS Exchange: Simplified Interconnectivity For Multimedia Messaging Services

Business Wire, Dec 20, 2004

WOODBURY, N.Y. -- Comverse, a unit of Comverse Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMVT), and the world's leading supplier of software and systems enabling network-based multimedia enhanced communication services, today announced availability of Comverse MMS Exchange, a central hub enabling multiple network operators to interconnect their MMS multimedia messaging services in a simple and flexible manner.

Currently, operators wishing to provide seamless MMS services across network boundaries need to implement separate routing connections and interconnectivity agreements with each and every other operator -- a complicated and lengthy process. Interoperability agreements cover a wide variety of aspects that are subject to frequent change, including protocol interoperability, message size limitations, network topology and routing, security, content adaptation, and billing and financial settlements. Comverse MMS Exchange is designed to streamline interconnectivity by creating a central hub requiring only a single connection from each operator, resulting in simplified implementation and maintenance of interconnection agreements with all other connected operators, and ultimately aiding in the free flow of MMS messaging worldwide.

"We designed Comverse MMS Exchange as an industry-standard product, based on our field-proven, high capacity, flexible MMS architecture, for the use by any provider of MMS services," says Amit Mattatia, General Manager of the MMS Division at Comverse. "It supports standard and non-standard MMS implementations, GSM to CDMA interconnection, MMS to i-mode interoperability, and can be easily customized to the specific requirements of the service provider and participating operators' billing, monitoring and reporting."

"Comverse is targeting an important aspect of the MMS market," says John Delaney, Principal Analyst at Ovum. "Now that MMS handsets are widely available, users are expecting the same smooth service regardless of whether their message is sent within or outside of their operator's network. This is the time when various international operators and managed service providers are actively looking for genuine infrastructure solutions that can quickly be deployed in order to provide MMS interconnect services to their affiliates."

About the Comverse MMS Solutions Suite

Comverse's Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC), part of Comverse's overall Total Communication(TM) portfolio, is a scalable telco-grade system, compliant with industry standards, for Person-to-Person as well as Application-to-Person messaging of rich multimedia content. Built on the eXtensible Messaging Framework (XMF) architecture and part of the Comverse InSight environment, the Comverse MMSC delivers advanced features and functionality on an open, flexibly configurable and easy-to-deploy platform. Comverse MMSC's rules-based content adaptation capabilities provide broad MMS handset and legacy device support, terminal interoperability and a superior user experience. Successfully deployed commercially throughout the world, Comverse MMSC is the choice of more and more service providers.

Comverse MMS Mailbox provides a Web interface to receive and send MMS messages, message storage beyond the limitations of handset memory, and a content-rich multimedia album of images to be used when composing messages.

Comverse MMS A2P Expeditor(TM) is an efficient, high-capacity solution for Application-to-Person messaging, deployable as a standalone system or side-by-side to a lower-capacity legacy / third-party MMSC, and upgradeable to Comverse MMSC.

Comverse MMS Exchange is a central hub enabling multiple network operators to interconnect their MMS services in a simple and flexible manner, ensuring easy implementation of interoperability agreements, and supporting all standard and non-standard flavors of MMS, CDMA to GSM connectivity and MMS to i-mode interoperability.

About Comverse

Comverse, a unit of Comverse Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMVT), is the world's leading provider of software and systems enabling network-based multimedia enhanced communication services. More than 400 wireless and wireline telecommunications network operators, in more than 100 countries, have selected Comverse's enhanced services systems and software, which enable the provision of revenue-generating value-added services including call answering with one-touch call return, short messaging services, IP-based unified messaging (voice, fax, and email in a single mailbox), 2.5G/3G multimedia messaging (MMS), instant communications, wireless information and entertainment services, voice-controlled dialing, messaging and browsing, prepaid wireless services, and additional personal communication services. Other Comverse Technology business units include: Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT), a leading provider of analytic solutions for communications interception, digital video security and enterprise business intelligence; and Ulticom (NASDAQ: ULCM), a leading provider of service enabling network software for wireless, wireline, and Internet communications. Comverse Technology is an S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 Index company. For additional information, visit the Comverse web site at http://www.comverse.com.