London, November 21, 2003. BT Global Services recently issued an invitation to tender for a platform capable of delivering a range of prepaid services throughout Europe. BT required a high-density solution that could accommodate as many as 900 E1 lines throughout Europe and switch over 1.5 billion minutes annually. It was also important that the new prepaid solution be capable of supporting multiple resellers via Web-based interfaces, and as always, time-to-market was an important additional criterion. After reviewing leading prepaid platforms, BT viewed ECT's AutoCarrier® Softswitch and Services Application as “… a scaleable, cost effective solution that meets our needs for delivering value added services to a Pan European market”, according to Chris Clark, President Wholesale Business, BT Global Services "We are proud to have won this major invitation to tender against stiff competition and are looking forward to working long-term with BT," says Chris Foxell, President Sales of the European Computer Telecoms Ltd.

The BT project foresees four phases including optional expansions for the envisaged growth of the new prepaid services. In the first phase, ECT has provided a complete prepaid solution with a switching capacity for over 200 million minutes annually. Within just eight weeks of awarding the contract, BT commissioned their new prepaid services. The UK-managed ECT service team completed the implementation, ensuring that all of BT’s requirements were met, and the stringent BT approval process was completed in only a few days. The top-level work of this ECT service team was one of the main reasons for awarding ECT the tender, BT representatives confirmed.

For over two years, BT has been deploying AutoCarrier Softswitches and the effECTive Service Number Suite® for the realisation of intelligent service numbers. With this new tender for further value-added services, BT now also joins the long list of major operators offering prepaid services based on ECT’s cost-efficient solutions. The Tele2 Group, for example, provides value-added services throughout Europe with AutoCarrier Softswitches in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and Spain. ECT's customers also include the leading calling card companies in England, France and Germany: Alpha Telecom, Kertel and Mox Telecom. In all, ECT provides solutions for more than 100 providers of prepaid and other value-added services, spanning across more than 180 installations in Europe and the Far East.

Looking to the future, ECT’s solution gives BT the option of implementing innovative prepaid features on the existing platform (e.g., message forwarding and prepaid conferencing) seamlessly, quickly, and at any given time. “ECT’s quick implementation period, coupled with the scalability of the platform fit in very well with our future expansion plans,” said Chris Clark. Amanda Weatherall, Procurement Manager of BT Global Services said, "The ECT proposal was selected against the competition based on it's economic advantage combined with aggressive leadtimes and compliance to BT's commercial requirements".

Background Information on the AutoCarrier Prepaid Solution:

High Availability and High Density. A key factor in prepaid projects is the scalability and reliability of the technology used. The Compact-PCI architecture of the AutoCarrier ensures high availability and enables the realisation of extremely large systems in a comparably small space. ECT has delivered BT an AutoCarrier Softswitch with 128 E1 lines, supporting the SS7 IUP protocol. Each high-density trunk card in the softswitch provides not only 16 E1 lines, but also the complete digital signalling processors (DSP) required to realise the interactive voice response for the prepaid services.  For this reason, the ECT solution is able to accommodate up to 192 E1 lines in just one AutoCarrier Communications Server. Moreover, as multiple Communications Servers can be employed in one softswitching node, BT can quickly and easily expand the initial installation for the envisaged hundreds of E1 lines. The architecture of the AutoCarrier thus played a key role in winning the BT contract, as these performance features will support BT’s expansion plans.

Switchless Resellers. Large providers of prepaid services also require the best possible reseller functionality, e.g. the ability to carry the traffic of third-party retailers of prepaid calling cards. The so-called switchless reseller produces his own cards, while the provider switches the traffic at predefined wholesale rates. With the ECT solution, these switchless resellers create and administer their own prepaid calling cards from the browser of any PC with Internet or intranet access to the system.  The reseller can directly conduct his entire calling card business. He can set up his own interactive voice response using the Visual Call Flow Builder, generate PINs, even choosing the PIN length, define his own customer tariffs and assign them to batches. Batches and individual cards can be activated up to a predefined credit limit, and CDRs can be downloaded as required. Each reseller can even define his own voice prompting for his prepaid products, differentiating his cards from those of other switchless resellers on the same platform.

Voice Prompting. Using a simple-to-use tool called Visual Call Flow Builder (VCB), ECT’s prepaid solution allows BT and resellers to develop and offer individual calling-card services without having to employ sophisticated and manufacturer-specific programming skills. As all VCB functions are mapped by means of icons and interlinked using simple logic, users need no special programming skills. Not only does this provide greater clarity for the entire call flow process, but it also saves a considerable amount of time when creating the voice prompting for individual prepaid products.

About BT:

BT is one of Europe's leading providers of telecommunications services.  Its principal activities include local, national and international telecommunications services, higher-value broadband and Internet products and services, and IT solutions.  In the UK, BT serves over 21 million corporate and residential customers with more than 28 million exchange lines, as well as providing network services to other licensed operators.

BT's Group strategy is to create value for shareholders through being the best provider of communications services and solutions for everybody in the UK, and for corporate customers in Europe, achieving global reach through partnership. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Retail, BT Wholesale, BT Global Services and BT Openworld. 

About the European Computer Telecoms Group