SFR Selects Thomson's Voice Switches for Mobile IP Centrex with Fixed Mobile Convergence
Paris (France) and Barcelona (Spain), February 12, 2007- Thomson (Euronext 18453; NYSE; TMS) today announced that SFR, the leading French mobile operator, has selected Thomson's Cirpack switches with Mobile IP Centrex capabilities to offer advanced business telephony features with fixed mobile convergence to enterprise users. SFR is one of Europe's largest mobile operators with a customer base of 17,8 million subscribers.
Bertrand Mabille, Director General of SFR's Entreprise Business Unit explained "Our strategy is what the Anglo-Saxons would call "mobile centric" - it consists of giving a central role to the mobile phone in convergent solutions, adding all the services that can be enjoyed with fixed line technology. Our service orientated philosophy means that we need the best technology at the best price. Thomson's Cirpack voice switching solutions answered our criteria and we believe that they are the most technologically advanced systems currently available in the field of convergence. Cirpack's reputation for reliability was key for supporting our strategy as providing seamless services for both mobile phones and fixed lines."
Jacques Dunogué, SEVP of Thomson's Systems division noted "Fixed Mobile Convergence has been very much talked about. Thomson is now deploying with Vodafone one of the world's largest FMC services, enabling unique features to be offered to business users. This achievement adds to other recent deployments and confirms Thomson's Cirpack leadership in both technical capacities and market reach.
This contract demonstrates Thomson's commitment to helping service providers build innovative services and increase their competitive edge. This is in fact the first solution of this type to be launched in France."
SFR has selected Thomson's Cirpack softswitches with Mobile IP Centrex to provide a full set of voice services over converged Mobile/IP networks. Users will benefit from a single phone number for both mobile and fixed lines, with simultaneous ringing and unified voice messaging on both phones. With SFR's new offer, business customers will be able to use their mobile handset to profit from all of the advanced features that are available on enterprise IP Centrex systems such as call transfer, call conferencing, short-dialling, filtering and supervision by an assistant. Because these features are managed by the Cirpack application in SFR Vodafone's infrastructure, they are available on any legacy GSM phone. Users will therefore not be obliged to change mobile phones to benefit from these new FMC services.
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About SFR
With more than 17.8 million customers and 8,000 employees, SFR is the second largest mobile telecommunications operator in France. Operating its own GSM/GPRS and UMTS/HSDPA networks, SFR is able to provide a complete range of mobile telephony and multimedia services, as well as mobile data solutions to its personal, SOHO and business customers. SFR has become the operator of choice for new uses of mobile phones, having been the first operator to launch 3G and 3G+ services on the French market, and now boasts 2,7 million 3G customers. The company is also a player on the fixed telecommunications market through its 40,6 % interest in Neuf Cegetel, the leading alternative operator on the French market. SFR benefits from a stable ownership structure, with two major shareholders, Vivendi (56%) and Vodafone (44%).
About Thomson - World leader in digital video technologies
Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) provides technology, services, and systems to help its Media & Entertainment clients - content creators, content distributors and users of its technology - realize their business goals and optimize their performance in a rapidly changing technology environment. The Group is the preferred partner to the Media & Entertainment Industries through its Technicolor, Grass Valley, RCA, and Thomson brands. For more information: www.thomson.net.
Thomson's Systems division develops video and film technologies, products and services sold to all major Hollywood studios, all major television, satellite, and cable broadcasters under the Grass Valley brand-name for the delivery of analog and digital entertainment. The division also includes the Thomson Premises Systems Business Unit, a leading supplier of residential gateways and digital entertainment decoders to the world's major telecom service providers, cable operators as well as satellite and terrestrial broadcasters and the Network Intelligence Solutions organization, one of the leading suppliers of VoIP and IPTV service delivery platforms enabling telecom operators to deploy broadband telephony, IPTV, Triple Play and Fixed-Mobile Convergence services
