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Multimedia and cloud communications solutions provider Genband announced it has acquired Fring’s Over-the-Top (OTT) mobile Internet Protocol (IP) communications service, which is designed to work across all major smartphone platforms.
The platform helps reduce roaming costs for subscribers by moving voice and video sessions away from radio access networks and routing them over the Internet, where interconnection and call completion economics are more attractive. The cloud-based OTT services are tailored to service providers’ needs, allowing them to deploy advanced IP communications services with reduced effort and risk.
“Fring is one of the pioneers that helped change the way consumers communicate on the go and is perfectly aligned with our strategy to bring service providers rich, simple to use, mobile communications solutions,” David Walsh, CEO of Genband, said in a statement. “The Fring team and technology enhance our ability to serve our customer base of over 700 service providers around the world, fortifying them with a proven platform they can white-label to bring their own brand of OTT services to subscribers.”
The routing of calls between wireless and IP networks allows users to initiate or receive calls on the device of their choice from anywhere in the world. Leveraging the service provider’s established billing relationship with subscribers, the Fring service can be added to existing service plans. In addition, the Fring white-label solution for the consumer OTT market segment complements Genband’s Nuvia white-label Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) offering, which the company rolled out in February.
The Nuvia solution includes everything from high-definition video and voice to multimedia messaging, Web collaboration, conferencing, messaging and the convergence of fixed and mobile services. In addition, the service providers and channel partners can customize the solution by hanging their own services on the Nuvia offering, enabling them to differentiate their offering from competitors.
“The reality for service providers moving forward is that their relevance is highly dependent on the quality of experience and choices they can deliver to their subscribers,” Brian Partridge, vice president of IT analytics firm Yankee Group Research, said in a statement. “Service providers around the world, and particularly in Europe, where roaming charges are extremely high, must evolve their communications services rapidly to ensure that they stay relevant and competitive against disruptive OTT offerings while complementing and enhancing their existing services.”
The transparent routing of calls between telephony and IP networks allows callers to use their existing phone numbers to initiate or receive calls on the device of their choice, be it a home phone, a smartphone or tablet application or a Web app running on a laptop or desktop computer.
“Combining Fring’s solutions with Genband’s global reach, engineering expertise and complementary cloud service offerings changes the game for service providers,” Roy Timor-Rousso, former CEO of Fring and currently a senior executive in Genband’s multimedia business unit, said in a statement. “After early successes licensing our solutions to a number of wireless and other carriers, we recognize the power of combining with Genband.”