Orange Botswana Orders New Billing System From Volubill

Orange Botswana has ordered a billing platform from Volubill to unify charging and access control for all mobile broadband access. Volubill's says that its solution is network independent and provides support to adapt to all data and service architectures.

It handles subscriber usage of IP services including data, content, messaging, VoIP and downloads, and provides capabilities like deep packet inspection (DPI), access control, policy management and traffic shaping, and user experience management for both simple Internet access or content-rich premium services.

When partnered with Volubill's CONTROL-IT product, CHARGE-IT enables end-to-end real-time control, charging and policy management for advanced services.

"Botswana's telecommunications market has grown so fast that operators like Orange Botswana are encountering many of the operational challenges that more established-market providers have been facing for years," said John Aalbers, CEO, Volubill.

"In choosing CHARGE-IT for increased control of pricing and charging policies for advanced service packages, Orange Botswana is better equipped to continue providing a high quality experience and compelling pricing packages to their subscribers. We are proud to have established this partnership with Orange Botswana to help them meet their ongoing business goals."

Orange Botswana Choses Alvarion for WiMAX Project

Alvarion says that it has won a contract from Orange Botswana for a turnkey WiMAX deployment, using its 4Motion end-to-end solution. The commercial network built at the 2.5 GHz frequency band enables Orange Botswana to provide advanced data services to businesses and homes in Gaborone and Francistown, Botswana’s two largest cities with a total population of over 330,000.

The first network was launched in June 2008 in Gaborone – Botswana’s capital and one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa. Following this successful deployment Orange Botswana increased the coverage in Gaborone and launched a second network in Francistown – an important center for industry and commerce, in November 2008. Future extensions of the networks are planned in other areas throughout the country.

“WiMAX enables a whole new wireless broadband experience for our customers,” said Wilfried Yver Head of Internet Service Provider of Orange Botswana. “We are confident that Alvarion’s proven global expertise in wireless broadband technologies and commitment to WiMAX will help us bring superior Internet service to our end-users, now and in the future. Alvarion’s innovative technology and complete offering enables us to answer the immediate need for high-quality, yet reasonably priced Internet access in the urban areas of the country. Our subscribers are already enjoying the benefits of the technology and we are very interested in the new opportunities 802.16e WiMAX could bring to this market.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Alvarion is also providing Orange Botswana with project management and implementation capabilities including network planning, network dimensioning, installation, technical support and professional services.

Botswana’s population is nearing two million with one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world of just above 4%.