Mobile operator Telenet pumps its voicemail with Acision

Telenet is the big kahuna when it comes to broadband in Belgium. The telecoms company began purely as a home Internet provider in 1997, but has since expanded and consumed TV, fixed phone and mobile phone services. Telenet has now decided the time has come to update its legacy voicemail system, and has chosen mobile messaging provider Acision for the job.

Acision:

Acision was born in 2007 as a conglomeration of several Irish and UK companies. It specialises in messaging systems like SMS, MMS and IP Messaging - but also has capabilities in mobile internet and voicemail. And this is where Telenet has become interested.

What’s the deal?

Telenet does run its own mobile operator, but it’s an MVNO that runs on networks owned by Orange. Telenet inherited the existing voicemail options in place when it got onto that network. A big part of the Telent drive in recent years has been convergence, and thanks to the purchases it has made since the late 90s it can now offer its own wholly owned triple play of TV, phone and broadband. The Acision upgrade plays to that convergence. The company runs its messaging architecture on what it calls the Next Generation Platform - which basically means the entire service runs on Internet Protocol architecture. Not only does this allow much more advanced voicemail options (VoiceSMS, VoiceMMS, Visual Voicemail, Voice to Text, to name a few), but it brings the Telenet voicemail onto the same advanced data platform that its other services run on.

Why did Telenet go with Acision? Mostly due to its status as a “satisifed customer”. Acision has been providing Telenet with the voicemail services for its fixed line phones for years now. Peter Michiels, SVP Network & Service Engineering of Telenet said that “Acision’s next generation platform will enable us to provide additional benefits to our ever growing mobile subscriber base. The advanced voice messaging functionality will enable our customers to communicate in new ways and increase our service stickiness.”

What we think?

Telenet has only begun to push its services as a mobile operator quite recently. But it’s running into a problem that is becoming more commonplace. These days, most people expect their mobile services to just work. You’re finding that the level of expectation in the phone-owning populace is rising. Especially as services like Visual Voicemail become more widely known about, people are going to want every aspect of their mobile service - including basic voicemail - to be as easy to access and use as their email.