Acision

Last updated
Acision
Type Private
Industry Mobile communications
Predecessor Aldiscon, CMG
Founded2007
FateAcquired by Comverse, Inc. in 2015 (later became Xura, then Mavenir)
Headquarters Reading, Berkshire, UK
Key people
  • Lawrence Quinn, Founder
  • Didier Bench, Executive chairman
  • Adolfo Hernandez, CEO
Products
  • Data services
  • Data control
  • Data charging
Revenue US$0.5 billion
Number of employees
1,100 (2013)
Website Acision

Acision was a privately held British mobile communications network infrastructure company engaged in messaging and charging systems that enable popular services such as Short message service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile internet browsing, mobile broadband, and voicemail. In particular, Acision specialised in providing IP messaging to over-the-top media services and other enterprises. [1]

Contents

Acision was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of the wireless networks business from LogicaCMG. [2] It existed as an independent, private company until it was purchased by Comverse, Inc. in 2015. [3]

Background

Acision's roots lie in two companies:

  1. The Wireless Data Services (WDS) division of Anglo-Dutch consultancy and telecommunications company CMG, the first to develop a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) in 1992 which was first deployed in 1993. CMG WDS also developed UCP/EMI, a protocol primarily used to connect to short message service centres (SMSCs).
  2. The Irish mobile telecommunications pioneers Aldiscon, the first to commercially deploy an SMSC, Telepath, and its now standardized protocol SMPP in 1993.

Aldiscon's first deployment of its Telepath SMSC was with TeliaSonera in Sweden in 1993, [4] followed by Fleet Call (now Nextel)[ citation needed ] in the US, Telenor in Norway[ citation needed ] and BT Cellnet (now O2 UK)[ citation needed ] later in 1993. In 1997, Aldiscon was acquired by UK-based Logica, which merged with CMG in 2002 to form LogicaCMG. Both companies' wireless divisions merged into LogicaCMG Wireless Networks.

History

Acision was born on 20 February 2007, when LogicaCMG Wireless Networks was sold for £265m (US$525m) to private investors Atlantic Bridge Ventures and Access Industries and became known as Acision. [2] The Times wrote that the new entity was "the world's largest provider of the software, hardware and integration services that form the infrastructure behind SMS text messages". [2] The lead investor at Atlantic Bridge (who became executive chairman at Acision), Laurence Quinn, had been one of the founders of Aldiscon. [5]

As of 2008, Acision had over 300 mobile operators [6] [7] as customers. Acision claimed to serve over a billion end users, and that over 50 per cent of SMS revenue was generated through its platforms. The company employed approximately 1,500 people in 22 countries. [8] Acision was considered one of the industry leaders in providing an MMS delivery platform to content provides, marketing providers, and the like. [9]

In June 2015, it was announced that Acision was being acquired by Comverse, Inc. for a combination of cash and stock values at between $135 and $210 million. [1] [3] Soon after the acquisition, Comverse changed its name to Xura. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMS</span> Text messaging service component

Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text messages. An intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines.

Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) in the telecommunications industry is an open, industry standard protocol designed to provide a flexible data communication interface for the transfer of short message data between External Short Messaging Entities (ESMEs), Routing Entities (REs) and SMSC.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia message. The MMS standard extends the core SMS capability, allowing the exchange of text messages greater than 160 characters in length. Unlike text-only SMS, MMS can deliver a variety of media, including up to forty seconds of video, one image, a slideshow of multiple images, or audio.

External Machine Interface (EMI), an extension to Universal Computer Protocol (UCP), is a protocol primarily used to connect to short message service centres (SMSCs) for mobile telephones. The protocol was developed by CMG Wireless Data Solutions, now part of Mavenir.

Network switching subsystem (NSS) is the component of a GSM system that carries out call out and mobility management functions for mobile phones roaming on the network of base stations. It is owned and deployed by mobile phone operators and allows mobile devices to communicate with each other and telephones in the wider public switched telephone network (PSTN). The architecture contains specific features and functions which are needed because the phones are not fixed in one location.

A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-core services, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business. In the telecommunications industry, on a conceptual level, value-added services add value to the standard service offering, spurring subscribers to use their phone more and allowing the operator to drive up their average revenue per user. For mobile phones, technologies like SMS, MMS and data access were historically usually considered value-added services, but in recent years SMS, MMS and data access have more and more become core services, and VAS therefore has begun to exclude those services.

A Short Message Service Center (SMSC) is a network element in the mobile telephone network. Its purpose is to store, forward, convert and deliver Short Message Service (SMS) messages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comverse Technology</span> Technology company in Woodbury, US

Comverse Technology, Inc., often referred to as simply Comverse, was a technology company located in Woodbury, New York in the United States, that developed and marketed telecommunications software. The company focused on providing value-added services to telecommunication service providers, in particular to mobile network operators. Comverse Technology had several wholly or partly owned subsidiaries. The name "Comverse" is a fusion of the words "communication" and "versatility".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Push Proxy Gateway</span>

A Push Proxy Gateway is a component of WAP Gateways that pushes URL notifications to mobile handsets. Notifications typically include MMS, email, IM, ringtone downloads, and new device firmware notifications. Most notifications will have an audible alert to the user of the device. The notification will typically be a text string with a URL link. Note that only a notification is pushed to the device; the device must do something with the notification in order to download or view the content associated with it.

Short codes, or short numbers, are short digit sequences, significantly shorter than telephone numbers, that are used to address messages in the Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) and short message service (SMS) systems of mobile network operators. In addition to messaging, they may be used in abbreviated dialing.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, feature phones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites, e-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, appointment reminders and ideas. In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device".

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An SMS gateway or MMS gateway allows a computer to send or receive text messages in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) transmissions between local and/or international telecommunications networks. In most cases, SMS and MMS are eventually routed to a mobile phone through a wireless carrier. SMS gateways are commonly used as a method for person-to-person to device-to-person communications. Many SMS gateways support content and media conversions from email, push, voice, and other formats.

Aldiscon Limited was a telecommunications software company founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1988. The company supplied software products to mobile phone operators and became a leader in the supply of short message service centres (SMSC).

TeleMessage is an Israeli software company based in Petach Tikva, Israel. The company was founded in 1999 by Guy Levit and Gil Shapira. It provides secure enterprise messaging, mobile communications archiving and high-volume text messaging services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ribbit (telecommunications company)</span>

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The MMS Architecture is the set of standards used by the Multimedia Messaging Service in mobile networks. The standards are prepared by 3GPP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mavenir</span>

HRMavenir Systems, Inc. dba Mavenir is an American telecommunications software company, created in 2017 as a result of a three-way merger of existing companies and technologies, that develops and supplies cloud-native software to the communications service provider (CSP) market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinch (company)</span> Telecommunications and cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company

Sinch, formerly CLX Communications, is a telecommunications and cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Sinch also has offices in over 30 cities worldwide, including Atlanta, London, Madrid, San Francisco, Singapore and Sydney.

Xura, Inc. , previously known as Comverse, Inc., was a technology company headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States, in existence from 2013 to 2017, that offered a portfolio of digital services which enabled global communications across a variety of mobile devices and platforms. Xura marketed and sold to communications service providers (CSPs) and to enterprises.

References

  1. 1 2 Thomas, Sarah (16 June 2015). "Comverse Shells Out $135M for Acision". New York: Light Reading.
  2. 1 2 3 Blakely, Rhys (20 February 2007). "LogicaCMG to return £130m after telecoms sale". The Times . London.
  3. 1 2 "Comverse acquires UK co Acision for $210m". Globes . Rishon LeZion. 15 June 2015.
  4. First commercial deployment of Text Messaging (SMS)
  5. "Mighty Quinn back on top at Logica", Mobile Europe, Feb. 2007
  6. Salesforce - Dutch report on Acision becoming a Salesforce.com customer
  7. Salesforce - Google translation of report on Acision becoming a Salesforce.com customer
  8. Access Industries - Acision
  9. John Arnold; Ian Lurie; Marty Dickinson; Elizabeth Marsten; Michael Becker (2009). Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. Wiley. ISBN   9780470483664.
  10. "Comverse – no, not the shoe guys – changes name to Xura". Betaboston.com. 9 September 2015.