Brasil Telecom Taps IBM and Narus to Accurately Identify Revenue

IBM and Narus Introduce Industry's First Revenue Sharing Reference Platform for Next Generation Telecom Networks

RSA CONFERENCE -- IBM and Narus announced today that Brasil Telecom, one of the largest telecommunications companies in Brazil, has implemented the industry's first solution to effectively help identify and collect unclaimed revenues generated across networks, known in the industry as "revenue leakage." Using IBM BladeCenter and Narus' carrier-class IP traffic analysis system, Brasil Telecom can now efficiently manage revenue streams across services running on their networks.

With the emergence of next generation IP services such as VoIP, IPTV and other new services delivered as part of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture, telecommunications providers across the globe are facing difficulty in monitoring the traffic produced by these unmanaged services. This can lead to financial integrity issues due to the difficulty in properly identifying and accounting for the source of all revenues across these networks.

Based on IBM BladeCenter and NarusAnalyze software, Brasil Telecom has implemented the industry's first solution to effectively manage and analyze interconnect traffic in real-time to equitably distribute revenues based on the type of service, where it originated, and who consumed it.

The IBM and Narus solution is designed to conduct high performance usage pattern analysis of all IP interconnect traffic and generate monthly content-based billing for telecommunication providers based on the type and volume of traffic. The solution effectively captures data across networks, stores it to an IBM DB2 data warehouse utilizing over 300 GB of IBM network attached storage, and then processes the data with IBM Alphablox software to generate content-based invoices for telecommunications providers within the interconnect group in question.

With more than 10.5 million telephone lines installed, Brasil Telecom is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Brazil. It was created from the merger of numerous smaller companies and now operates across approximately one-third of the nation, ranking as the largest telecommunications company in the south and central-east regions. In addition to basic telephone service, Brasil Telecom offers long distance and international calling, and it recently added mobile phone services.

"As telecommunications service providers move into the future, a greater percentage of our business models will rely on our ability to profitably deliver high-quality IP services such as VoIP and IPTV," said Ricardo Fernandez, director of Business Operations, Brasil Telecom. "This new revenue sharing reference platform will allow Brasil Telecom and the rest of the industry to address the issue of the hundreds of millions of dollars lost due to revenue leakage."

"Virtually every telecommunications service provider in the world faces the issue of accurate identification of revenue distribution as they move forward to offer IP services on next generation Networks," said Scott Firth, director, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "The solution IBM and Narus has implemented for Brasil Telecom serves as a model for other telecoms around the world to help accurately identify all sources of revenue and ensure revenue integrity."

"The revenue sharing platform developed by IBM and Narus is an example of the power and flexibility of our carrier-class system," said Greg Oslan, president and CEO of Narus. "At the heart of the architecture we have developed for Brasil Telecom is our system's ability to capture, analyze and correlate any IP traffic across the entire network at multi-gigabit speeds."

About Brasil Telecom

Brasil Telecom S.A. provides local, intra-regional long distance, network, data communication and other value-added services to the states of Acre, Rondonia, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Goias, Santa Catarina, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul, as well as the Federal District. This operating area covers 23% of the population (over 40 million people), 25% of the Brazilian GDP (approximately R$276 billion in 2001) and 33% of the nation's territory (nearly 2.8 million km2).

About Narus

Narus, Inc. provides ultra-high performance IP Management and Security for the largest carrier and government networks in the world. The Narus IP system offers a "Total Network View" through the real-time collection and analysis of one to billions of packets across multiple networks at up to OC-192 rates to enable IP applications such as security, traffic and customer analysis, monitoring, and billing. Narus' customer list includes U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile, AT&T, Korea Telecom, KDDI, Telecom Egypt, Saudi Telecom, Vodafone and many others. For more information, please visit www.narus.com.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

---

Distributed by Market Wire

   _   _