Europe : Tertio Telecoms, specialist in service provisioning and mediation for the telecoms sector, has announced that it has been selected to provide its systems to Inmarsat, the world’s leading telecommunications satellite operator. In a contract worth $1.5 million over 4 years, Inmarsat has bought Tertio’s Provident Service Activation provisioning solution and its Evident convergent mediation solution, to support the launch of the Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) due to be launched in early 2005.

Inmarsat BGAN will be the first 3G service via satellite and will provide high-speed data access virtually anywhere in the world using a new constellation of Inmarsat satellites. The precursor to this service called Regional BGAN launched in November 2002 and provides GPRS-compatible services to 99 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Danet, systems integrator and prime contractor for the Inmarsat BGAN project, was already responsible for implementing the business support system for Regional BGAN. Danet adopted a best of breed approach based upon b.bridge, Danet’s EAI architecture to meet Inmarsat’s requirement for the future-oriented integration of flexible packages from established expert vendors. Tertio was chosen for its ability to demonstrate proven support for 3G services, with its convergent, flexible & highly scaleable solutions. It was also able to offer specialist consultancy and integration services built on in depth knowledge and experience gained in the 3G environment.

Jean-Marie Fabry, Director of BSS Systems at Inmarsat Limited, said: “Provisioning and mediation are critical, enabling us to create and measure any new service offering. Our commitment to provide the first 3G services across a mobile satellite network meant that we needed to first carry out a thorough assessment of the proposed networks. Tertio offered us a proven and scaleable solution, supported by exceptional customer references from leading telecom operators.”

Provident Service Activation from Tertio is designed to enable operators to provision next generation services quickly and cost effectively. Tertio’s Provident provisioning solution has already proven its 3G capabilities following its global implementation at 3 in 2002.

Evident from Tertio collects, correlates, formats and delivers meaningful data about service usage to multiple business systems. Evident is proven to support voice, data and content services and real-time quality of service billing.

Nigel Clifford, CEO of Tertio commented, “Partnering with the market leader in satellite technology is a unique opportunity to build on our existing expertise in global 3G implementations. Tertio has already proved its worth in the 3G provisioning space, supporting the successful roll-out of Hutchison’s 3 service. Inmarsat is leading the way in the future of next generation mobile technologies, and we look forward to being part of this.”