Sophisticated UM service for major Indonesian mobile operator

Since 1987, Trans Komunikasi Datanet (TKD) has been developing sophisticated telecommunications solutions for the Indonesian market based on world-class hardware and software and its own innovative technology. One of its earliest successes was with a voicemail application. “We saw the many excellent technologies developed by companies such as Dialogic,” explains TKD’s Director Eng Tjong, “and we decided to build on these and our own wide experience to extend our voicemail expertise into a unified messaging solution.”

Before the development of TKD’s unified solution, a separate system was needed for each type of service in Indonesia as in the rest of the world. A carrier that wished to provide voicemail, email and fax capabilities, for example, needed a separate system for each service. Not only was this segregated environment costly, since it necessitated using a great deal of specialised and sometimes redundant equipment, but it was also extremely expensive and time consuming to administer. Adding new services meant adding an entirely new system; modifying and deleting services was awkward and difficult, requiring specialised personnel.

According to Eng Tjong, “We were determined to streamline this situation, making administering services efficient and cost effective while providing a much more convenient unified interface for end users.”

TKD’s approach was to both synthesise and modularise its challenging problem. The company decided on a three-pronged approach: a modular architecture (NG-VMS), a single platform that would allow a carrier to easily add, delete and administer a variety of services (NG-VAS), and a unified messaging application to synthesise everything for the end customer (TKD-XE UMS).

Overall, the unified solution is referred to as NG-VAS.

The basis of TKD’s solution is its comprehensive modular architecture where each level of the architecture is specifically designed to be highly scalable. The architecture can also bring together, in a single system, many networks, interfaces and features.

One of the principal advantages of NG-VAS is its ability to handle a wide variety of standard network types, including GSM wireless, CDMA fixed wireless, PSTN fixed wireline and converged NGN data and internet. In addition, NG-VAS is capable of providing an extensive selection of end-user interfaces, such as web browsers, mini-webs, Microsoft Outlook email, voicemail with auto attendant and fax. Functions supported include forwarding, notification via SMS, message retrieval, and direct and indirect access. Video mail, video portal, videoconferencing and IVVR capabilities are included, along with more established messaging media such as voicemail, email, fax, voice portal, voice conferencing, IVR, ring back tones, background music and SMS.

Dialogic technology is used at critical points to implement NG-VAS. For example, the Dialogic IMG 1010 integrated media gateway and its any-to-any network connectivity allows the NG-VAS system to accept input from both multiple E1 digital lines and SS7 SDL links and then deliver SIP input to the internal IP-based system.

A second critical point in the TKD system at which Dialogic technology is utilised is the NG-VAS media server. This media server platform is powered by the Dialogic IP Media Server, a carrier-grade, software-based and highly scalable IP media server that TKD runs on an IBM System x3650 2U ‘rack-dense’ rackmount server.

“We and our customers are very pleased with the Dialogic products,” commented Eng Tjong. “We have seamless gateway connectivity to the PSTN, which the IMG 1010 gives us, and excellent compatibility between the Dialogic IP Media Server software and the IBM hardware server that together deliver all the media resources we need to handle voice and video. We also chose to use IP MS because at the time we were creating the system, it was the only IP media server product that supported XML.

The IPMS and x3650 work together so well that we have not been tempted to even try any other hardware because we have such an ideal and powerful combination now.” As of July 2007, TKD has successfully completed 10 deployments of NG-VAS in five cities for one of the largest CDMA mobile operators in Indonesia and the operator’s subscribers are delighted. Previously, the mobile subscribers could only access voicemail from their own handsets via a voice call and only a limited number of features were available. For example, they could not manage their voicemail greeting, and fax messages and email were not available on the voicemail interface.

“The operator is very pleased with the new system, which is very reliable. The operator began by deploying the basics and is now gradually introducing more attractive solutions to increase subscriber loyalty and provide a competitive advantage,” reports Eng Tjong. “We are the first company to offer this unified system in Indonesia and we look forward to further successful deployments and continued enhancements with the solid combination of our technology and Dialogic products.”