A new mobile service has been offered and deployed to mobile phone users in the Netherlands using Narus mobile software products. KPN is the first carrier in the world to offer i-mode mobile data services to customers on a prepaid basis. These services include browsing i-mode sites, e-mail, MMS, chat, downloading ringtones and games, making/sending/receiving photos, and secure banking.
i-mode -- an Internet access system for mobile phones initially developed by NTT DoCoMo -- was introduced for postpaid customers in the Netherlands in April 2002 by leading European operator KPN. i-mode users can browse the web and obtain information and entertainment from their mobile data phone. For the first time ever, anywhere in the world, KPN is offering i-mode services on a prepaid basis. These prepaid i-mode services will benefit customers who want new mobile data services but who prefer and are accustomed to a prepaid business model. Prepaid service gives customers cost control, eliminates billing surprises to the consumer, and is the preferred business model in many countries around the world. Narus provides operators with new ways to capitalize on new prepaid data services in countries where prepaid plans are prevalent or the primary method preferred for payment by customers. KPN expects these new prepaid services enabled by Narus to be an important driver for the further take-up of i-mode in the Netherlands.
"KPN is pleased to be the first company anywhere in the world to offer valuable i-mode services to our customers on a prepaid basis. Narus' software was instrumental in helping us offer these new services," said Cees van den Heijkant, CEO of KPN Mobile The Netherlands. "Our prepaid data services -- which we are offering using Narus -- will allow us to better serve our existing customers, attract new customers, and grow our Average Revenue Per User."
"Narus is the first and only telecommunications software company to offer a carrier-grade prepaid data solution deployed by a major tier-one mobile operator. This is a testament to the complexity of offering prepaid data services and how Narus has met these challenges so that new prepaid data services can be offered to customers today," said Greg Oslan, president and CEO of Narus.