Intec continues expansion in Africa with Interconnect deal in the Côte d’Ivoire

London , Abidjan May 12, 2008 – Intec, a global provider of business and operations systems (BSS/OSS), today announced that it has signed a major deal with Moov Côte d’Ivoire, a subsidiary of Atlantique Telecom, one of the fastest growing GSM operators in West and Central Africa. Under the terms of the agreement, Intec has supplied and successfully installed its market leading Intec Interconnect billing solution at Moov Côte d’Ivoire with a network of over 1 million subscribers. Moov is the mobile brand name of Atlantique Telecom whose minority shareholder is Banque Atlantique of Côte d’Ivoire and the majority shareholder Etisalat, one of the biggest telecommunications services providers in the Middle East.

Intec’s reputation as an established world-class OSS provider was cited as a key reason for Moov’s decision to select Intec Interconnect as its billing system of choice. “With almost 30 operators using Intec Interconnect in Africa today, Intec is regarded as the market leader in wholesale business management solutions for the continent”, explains Aboubacar Coulibaly, Atlantique Telecom’s Group IT Director. “Another advantage Intec has over other billing suppliers is its existing presence in the network of other Ivorian GSM operators. Many of Moov Côte d’Ivoire’s competitors are already users of Intec Interconnect and have experienced first hand the financial benefits of installing such a powerful and reliable billing system. We want to achieve the same results for our business”, says Francois Kouassi, Moov Côte d’Ivoire’s Operators Business Manager.

The project was completed ahead of schedule by Intec’s competence centre in West Africa. Extensive training and skills transfer was also conducted to enable Moov Côte d’Ivoire to leverage the skills of its own technical and business team to become fully self-sufficient in running and using the Intec Interconnect system.

Through the installation of the Intec Interconnect platform, Atlantique Telecom’s goal is to reduce the wholesale costs for national and international interconnect traffic. At present this is one of Moov Côte d’Ivoire’s largest single business expenditures and therefore a critical challenge to overcome as the company expands its operations. Moov Côte d’Ivoire plans to reduce these costs by using Intec Interconnect’s powerful billing capabilities to accurately and automatically control what is paid out and what is invoiced to its partners. Moov Côte d’Ivoire is also looking to expand its international wholesale services, and is increasing its availability to other operations in the group. Intec Interconnect will support this initiative while helping Moov Côte d’Ivoire better manage its regular administrative and operational tasks, enabling the operator to allocate more time to negotiating new and better agreements with its interconnect partners.

“This project is strategic for Intec as it is aligned with our goal to sign group deals with the largest telecommunications providers in the region,” explains Gary Burch, VP EMEA. “We already have group agreements with Orange and Orascom Telecom Holding to name just a couple of major players, and Moov being part of a big operator such as Etilisat reinforces our status as the preferred OSS vendor of choice to some of the biggest and most highly regarded communications companies in the region.”