ITWeb (Johannesburg)
Stephen Whitford
19 February 2004
Johannesburg — MTN has launched its CorporateMobility solution through wireless data provider (WDP) MTN Network Solutions, to provide connectivity between a company's mobile workforce and its back-end system.
Brian Seligmann, MTN senior marketing manager of products and solutions, says MTN chose to go to market using WPDs because they have particular expertise in the application-based mobile and general packet radio service (GPRS) arenas. This enables them to deploy applications across all elements of a company's network.
"Unlike our previous product, MyConnect, CorporateMobility offers a formalised connection into a company network, reverse billing on all data bearers, works through GPRS and is offered through a specialised IT channel, the WPD," he says.
Seligmann says the corporate is billed directly for all business data traffic at business data tariffs, irrespective of the caller or their price plan, rather than the employees being billed at consumer data tariffs.
"Distinguishing between business data and an employee's private GPRS usage is done by a facility on the network called an Access Point Name (APN). The employee would use the Internet APN for private use and it would be billed to the employee, while the company's APN would separate business traffic, which would then be billed directly to the company," Seligmann says.
MTN Network Solutions is the first WDP to be signed up, although others will also be utilised for billing, service, links and overall support for CorporateMobility.
Seligmann says the WPDs will then work in partnership with the cellular service providers, giving the user a single point of contact for account management and service support for their mobile data applications.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 ITWeb. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
