ICE Costa Rica Launches Push Email Service Using Synchronica Mobile Gateway
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ICE Costa Rica Launches Push Email Service Using Synchronica Mobile Gateway Highlights:
o Costa Rica's incumbent operator Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) launches Syncronizate
o Syncronizate provides push email and mobile synchronization to the ICE Acelera webmail service
o Service provided free of charge to Acelera and GPRS data subscribers
San Jose, London - Synchronica plc, the international provider of next-generation mobile messaging services, announces that Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), Costa Rica's incumbent telecommunications provider, has launched its mass market push email service based on Synchronica's award-winning Mobile Gateway middleware.
The ICE service branded Syncronizate will be used to add new push functionality to the existing ICE webmail service Acelera. The Syncronizate service will be provided free of charge to any Acelera or internet GPRS subscriber.
Syncronizate allows Costa Rican consumer, prosumer, and business subscribers to enjoy push email and synchronization services without needing to upgrade or replace their existing mobile handsets. Synchronica's Mobile Gateway provides 100 percent device compatibility by using the built-in email and synchronization clients found in a wide range of handsets in addition to email to MMS and email to SMS for basic handsets.
Oscar Arias, Director, Services Division, at ICE, commented: "For a push email service to succeed in Costa Rica it needs to be affordable and to work on any handset, from high-end smartphones down to entry-level devices. Synchronica's solution ticked both boxes, and we're excited to be launching our cost-effective Syncronizate push email and mobile synchronization service to all of our subscribers."
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, added: "Mobile operators are looking at data services to shore up declining revenues caused by falling voice tariffs. We are finding that a growing number of mobile operators from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America are turning to Synchronica Mobile Gateway as a solution. Mobile email has proven to be a very appealing data service which can help to reduce churn and improve average revenue per user (ARPU). Mobile Gateway provides push email on literally all handsets, enabling operators to extend data services successfully to the mass market."
Commenting on the Latin American market, Nick Jotischky, Principal Analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media, said: "Mobile non-voice services, such as mobile email, continue to grow and become more important to operator strategies in Latin America. This latest contract win for Synchronica in Latin America with its mobile-email-for-all solution is a case in point. The size of the non-voice market grew by 38 percent in 2008 to reach USD 11 billion of which USD 4.5 billion comprised the non-SMS data market. Indeed, the number of non-SMS data subscribers (GPRS, CDMA2000 1x and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO) was in excess of 25 million across the region at the end of 2008, accounting for an 18 percent rise during the year."
About Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
The Grupo ICE founded in 1949 is a state-owned holding composed of ICE (Electricity and Telecommunications Sectors) and their companies Radiografica Costarricense SA (RACSA) and CompañÃa Nacional de Fuerza y Luz S.A (CNFL) which developed their expansion through various modernization projects executed in recent decades.
In the field of telecommunications, industrial and technological growth experienced by the country since 1985 prompted the Grupo ICE to enter the digital era and currently, with the 3G (UMTS) mobile technology with platforms for IPTV and VoIP (voice over television and internet protocol) has allowed ICE to become a triple play operator, i.e., sending instant voice, data, and video and also to provide faster communications and the incorporation of new value-added services.
ICE, based in San José, Costa Rica, is the dominant market operator, not only because of the loyalty of the citizens, but with a top-level organizational structure with a presence all across the country. With these favorable conditions, ICE continues to advance in its efforts to reduce the digital divide, providing the country with a high-quality connectivity and bandwidth at each corner and at every village so that the world of opportunities is accessible to each of the inhabitants. For further information, please visit www.grupoice.com
About Synchronica
Synchronica plc is a leading developer of next-generation mobile messaging solutions based on open industry standards. The award-winning product portfolio includes the flagship product Mobile Gateway, providing push email, synchronization, instant messaging (IM), backup and restore, and mobile connectivity to social networks. Synchronica's products are white-labeled and offered by mobile operators in emerging and developed markets to provide mass market messaging services, increasing data revenues and reducing churn.
Synchronica Mobile Gateway provides a unique multi-protocol gateway combining Push IMAP, SyncML, ActiveSync, Email to MMS, and Email to SMS, delivering push email and synchronization to literally any mobile phone currently in the market without requiring an additional client to be downloaded. Expanding instant messaging to mobile devices, Mobile Gateway establishes carrier-branded IM communities, using the industry standard XMPP and provides gateways to popular internet IM communities, connecting any IMPS-enabled handset.
Headquartered in England, Synchronica also maintains a development center in Germany in addition to a regional presence in the USA, Hong Kong, and Dubai. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC.L). For further information, please visit www.synchronica.com
For more information, please contact:
Nicole Meissner
Chief Operating Officer
Tel.: +44 1892 552 780
Mobile: +44 7977 256 412
Fax: +44 1892 552 721
nicole.meissner@synchronica.com
Contact
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
Licda. Natalia Arce R.
Services Division
Tel.: +506 2000 9855
narce@ice.go.cr
