UK Government Implements World’s Most Ambitious Smart Metering Program Through Telefónica Infrastructure

NetCracker Supports The Launch of Flexible New Business Models and Microservices-Based Partner Management

WALTHAM, MA — January 12, 2016 — NetCracker Technology announced today that Telefónica UK, which operates as O2 in the UK, has agreed to extend the use of NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution through a hosted managed services model for two new significant initiatives. By using NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution and Hosted Managed Services, O2 will provide rating, billing and mediation capabilities for a nationwide smart metering program across 53 million devices as well as a large-scale partner revenue-sharing ecosystem, which allows Telefónica customers to purchase third-party products and services that can be charged directly to their monthly phone bill.

Telefónica UK, which operates under the O2 brand, is the second-largest mobile provider in the UK. O2 is a leading digital communications company with over 25 million customers across the UK using its 2G, 3G and 4G networks.

O2 Takes on World’s Largest M2M Project

In 2013, O2 won the Smart Meter Implementation Programme (SMIP), which is run by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), a department of the United Kingdom Government and is the world’s largest smart meter/M2M initiative. As part of the SMIP programme, O2 will use NetCracker’s flexible Revenue Management solution to:

• Rate and bill infrastructure transactions for any event across 53 million smart meters
• Create aggressive and innovative pricing options for end customers
• Allow real-time transaction management across diverse event types

From a business perspective, the solution will help O2:

• Operationalize a billing and rating environment with minimal upfront investment costs
• Seamlessly extend capabilities to support innovative business models
• Manage a complex multi-party ecosystem

O2 Launches Innovative Partner Management Initiative

O2 will also use NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution as a means to enable its Charge-to-Mobile initiative in which customers can conduct transactions with third parties and have those charges directly added to their monthly phone bill. Using NetCracker’s microservices-based rating and billing capabilities will allow O2 to introduce new business and revenue models, enable revenue-sharing strategies and deploy IoT-based offerings.

O2’s continued use of NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution demonstrates the platform’s mission-critical ability to support complex billing relationships and deliver a consistent, simplified experience to both existing and new customers.

“Taking on these massive and innovative programs with tight timelines is a major undertaking, which encouraged us to only leverage solutions that we knew could support us quickly and seamlessly. NetCracker’s solution will play a mission-critical role in helping us launch our partner-centric, IoT-driven business model and Charge-to-Mobile initiative,” said Brendan O’Rourke, CIO at O2 in the UK. “As our existing supplier in this space, we are confident that NetCracker’s Hosted Managed Services and industry expertise will provide us with the functionality we need in order to deliver a truly differentiated experience to our customers.”

“We are happy to help O2 in the UK take on its groundbreaking endeavors to become more agile and bring innovative services to its customers,” said Sylvain Seignour, Vice President of Global Sales at NetCracker. “This extension validates our managed services capabilities, our innovative Revenue and Partner Management solutions and our commitment to supporting our customers as they expand into new business partnerships.”