TopMoto: Motorola Helps Operators Extend ‘Push’ of a Button Services to Prepaid Consumer Market

New solution enables Motorola PoC service for Prepaid users as packet service for the Prepaid market

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill.– 1 Feb. 2006 – Motorola (NYSE: MOT) today announced the Push-to-Talk Over Cellular (PoC) Prepaid Mediation Solution, a new service that enables wireless operators to extend PoC services to prepaid customers in parallel with their postpaid subscribers. Motorola’s end-to-end PoC Prepaid Mediation Solution encompasses the network, devices and services.

This mediation solution can be extended to support other applications’ prepaid billing needs by integrating with operators’ network services enablers such as messaging, location-based services, video streaming and email solutions.

“More than 60 percent of global wireless consumers are prepaid subscribers1,” said Sri Kannankote, Motorola’s corporate vice president, Network Services and Applications Management. “As a global leader in PoC, this solution is a natural extension of our portfolio that provides operators with another method for offering advanced services to increase average revenue per user.

Motorola Global Application Management Architecture (GAMA) enables this mediation solution and works with virtually any billing system to accommodate operators' needs. This plug-and-play interface enables swift authentication and debiting of the customer account without a delay in call set-up and can support various types of PoC Prepaid billing scenarios that require a more customized approach to rating, such as pay per minute, pay per session or unlimited calling. GAMA also provides the service providers with a common service delivery and content management architecture that simplifies and accelerates the creation, deployment and management of end-user applications and services.

According to Yankee Group analyst Erica Fox, “the expansion of prepaid payment options has been one of the most critical growth drivers of the worldwide wireless market. Latin American markets for example have increased the share of prepaid subscribers from 80 percent to 85 percent during the last three years and are predicted to maintain a steady 85 percent through 2009.”

In addition, because the solution has the ability to support future services like Push-to-View, subscribers can continue to enhance the way they communicate through new services not realized before. From an operator perspective, this flexibility provides a path for achieving revenue growth not only through the delivery of new services, but also through a more efficient billing infrastructure.

Now, PoC makes it possible for prepaid and postpaid customers to share a special moment with an entire “buddy list” - including friends and family across the globe - instantly during one discussion.

Motorola is a leader in deploying PoC with more than 46 commercial contracts in 35 countries and territories worldwide and anticipates that it will continue to participate in the growth of this service in emerging markets. The PoC Prepaid Mediation solution can be deployed on CDMA, GSM or UMTS networks.