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Argela brought value to Cell C, not only with their technical expertise, but also through teaming with us, and their driving contribution in all phases of the project. We’d definitely like to continue our co-operation with Argela in future projects.   Fabrizio Mambrini, CFO, CellC

Argela, being one of the leading global telecom solutions provider, will be present at the Connected Home Global Summit 2010 event which will be held this year in London on October 5th-6th, 2010.

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Overview   “Mobile Number Portability” (MNP) process consists of two phases :   First phase starts with the inquiry of the number owner with porting request and terminates with the activation of his/her number in the receiver operator systems. This process is called as “Provisioning” and the solution for this process is addressed with “Number Portability Server”.   The second phase is faced during call set-up. This is the routing of the call made to the ported number, to the new destination instead of the original one. The “Network Solution” is used to ensure this traffic routing. The main goal of the provisioning process is feeding the NP network node to update routing info. “Service Porting” is another aspect of the Number Portability. This process addresses the ability of service network change without changing the number.(e.g. moving to 3G service network with 2G service number)   Although it differs in different countries’ regulations, there are three main actors in the number portability provisioning scenarios. These are “Central NP Database Server” (CDb Server), “Number Portability Server” for Mobile or Fixed operators (MNP Server). Beside the Number Portability Servers located inside the operators, Central NP Database Server located at the Regulatory Body premises, orchestrates the operators.   “Fixed Number Portability” process is porting action of a fixed line to an other fixed operator without changing the number. An other porting process regarding the fixed operators is “Geographical Number Portability”. In this case a number is moved to an other exchange in a different geographic area but still in the same operator, keeping the original number. In the following figure NP actors and their relationship is shown.   Figure 1. Actors of a NP Process and their relationship.   Argela provides Number Portability solutions in all above mentioned cases.   Argela offers Network Solution (MNP Network Component) for call-related procedures as well. Two alternative solutions are offered to the choice of the operators for this purpose : IN based solution or NP-STP solution.

Key Benefits   Argela offers an extensive guidance to the operator to shape their business rules regarding all the details as customer relationship, fraud management beside the fundamental IT operations. In the past experinces Argela worked in cooperation with Regulatory Department and contribute to the inter operator workshops as well.   Number Portability (NP ) is in the scope of the operators due to national regulatory obligations. The main issue is that the regulatory rules changes on country basis and integration and business rules changes from operator to operator. NP Server must be tailored according to the operator’s business rules as well as the regulatory rules. The solution is the target product of an integration project, shaped with the portability rules : NP Server is a solution but not an off-the-shelf product.   Argela with its expertise on “business and technical processes analysis“ area offers flexible solutions, working in cooperation with the operator’s marketing, technical and operational departments.   The benefits of Argela NP Solution: System is build on a Automated Business Process Management Tool Users who are part of the process are forced to follow the predefined procedures There is no possibility to violate the defined procedures E-mail and telephone traffic is minimized The system informs people itself Provisioning and configuration is done in the minimum time with maximum accuracy Detailed reporting possibilities are offered via GUI The status of any process in progress can be observed Data integrity is forced by the system System failures are minimized and possible wasted time due to this failures is saved Internal or external parties who involve in the process can easily be part of the process using web interfaces (Dealers, different departments inside the company etc) New platforms or users can easily be integrated into the system thanks to the modular and easily expandable structure of the system

Key Features   Although they are defined with the local regulatory rules in each country very basic number portability scenarios for a server are : Port-in process (Acceptance and activation of a number from an other operator) Port-out (Sending and deactivation of an owned number to an other operator) Return back of a number to its original holder after deactivation (Receiver operator and donor operator side) Return back of the number in case of fraud detection (Receiver operator and donor operator side) Routing information update of a cross-ported number (Update the routing information in NP database about a number ported between two different operators) Synchronisation with Central NP Database Cancellation Each scenarios mentioned above have to ensure regulatory rules as well as operator’s internal business needs. Operator’s requirements are Customer Care and Dealers interactions, fraud inspections, reporting, archiving, scheduling etc. Hence the most important part of a NP server project is “business and technical processes analysis“ phase. Each portability use case should be studied separately and definition of the business and integration rules must be clarified and documented.   Once use cases are defined they are managed as process flows and built on a BPM Tool. Human interactions are also available via GUI. Users are forced to follow the predefined procedures to prevent the process violation and to ensure the data integrity.   Technical Features:   Process monitoring All active processes can be filtered and monitored through the operator GUI. Process designer New processes can easily be created and existing processes can be modified through easy to use Graphical Process Designer Automated provisioning Data provisioning and deprovisioning are fully automated to protect data consistency Open source code Prevents vendor dependence for the future enhancements. Powerful reporting capabilities NP Server has own database which keeps the data related to NP requests and their status information as well as counters that are used as raw data for NP related reports. Error handling mechanism NP Server sends SMS or e-mail notifications to responsible personnel as well. It handles failure conditions by retry mechanisms that have retry counts and timeouts which can be configurable via MNP Server GUI. User Management Task assignment is done automatically to users or groups according to their profiles. NP Database Replica NP Server keeps in its own database all of the number portability events. It is also a replica of NP database used for the routing purposes.   Used Technology:   Business Process Engine Argela has realized several systems for big operators using this technology and has developed add-on software to enhance the management of the flows with these engines Adaptation Software – JAVA & J2EE Argela designers have excellent experience with Java language and J2EE application development. All development is done using JAVA and J2EE. Always standard based interfaces Argela NP Server uses Web Services based interfaces (as long as it is possible) to allow easy integration of peripheral components and future developments. High Availability Automatic process and output queue handover

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