Cerillion

Convergent customer care and billing specialist, Cerillion Technologies, has just completed successful trials on a billing system for the world's first floating GSM cell. The system has offered cruise ship passengers the ability to use their own GSM phones whilst on board ship.

Says Louis Hall, Managing Director of Cerillion Technologies: "BT Aeronautical and Maritime had an idea to offer passengers the opportunity to use their existing GSM mobile phone and number whilst on board cruise ships. This idea involved placing a base station on board a ship and linking it via satellite to the BT Manx network. This was first done on the P&O cruises' ship "Oriana".

Technically each user would be registered as a visiting subscriber on the BT Manx network. However the idea was to use the Cerillion Technologies CCBS system to recognise the cell site ID and bill users for the service at a special rate.

The system had to be implemented in a very tight time schedule. The complete project was completed in less than three months from concept to implementation."

The trial has proven to be successful. The "floating cell" allowed all passengers to use their own phones and to receive and make calls just as they would be able to on a land-based holiday. Service was available at all times during a cruise except when the ship was within a certain distance of land. At these times the cell site was automatically switched off to avoid interference with land based systems.

The trial was highly successful and BT Aeronautical and Maritime is in the process of rolling out the service to several of the main cruise lines that are based primarily in the USA.

About Cerillion Technologies:

Based in Central London, Cerillion provides convergent Telecoms Customer Care and Billing Solutions to fixed, mobile, IP and convergent operators worldwide. Cerillion was formed in October 1999 through the Management Buyout of the Frost Customer Care and Billing division of Logica, which has been supporting operators needs since 1992.

The Cerillion solution provides operators and service providers with a flexible end-to-end solution, to their customer care and billing needs, along with operational support functionality such as workflow management, Web Care and mediation. In addition, Cerillion supports IP and content based billing as well as third generation technologies such as GPRS and UMTS.

Cerillion works closely with technology partners such as Xacct to ensure clients are delivered the broadest functionality within one pre-integrated solution. In addition partners such as Logica provide integration and implementation strength.

For further information please contact:

Dominic Smith +44 207 927 6000. dominic.smith@cerillion.com
Cerillion Technologies, 15 Adeline Place, London WC1B 3AJ