Telenor opens new interface to third parties

Fornebu, Telenor’s Mobilt Bedriftsnett links mobile business users to a company’s internal network. This is the first time Telenor has allowed third parties to directly integrate with its mobile network.

Mobilt Bedriftsnett is Telenor’s biggest ever individual drive in the business market. The service allows companies to connect their employees - closer, simpler and more clearly. Mobilt Bedriftsnett will be a common service platform for mobile and fixed telephony.

Businesses using the product will have a virtual private exchange that can include main numbers, a switchboard, welcome messages and menus, group functions, internal telephone catalogues and presence indication. By making extensive use of web-technology we increase user friendliness, and the need for companies to invest in special equipment and adaptations is reduced.

Enormous potential
“Mobilt Bedriftsnett will be the dominant solution for business telephony in Norway,” says Bjørn Martin Worsøe at Telenor. “We aim to have more than half of all mobile customers in the Norwegian market using this solution. Mobilt Bedriftsnett is a radical renewal of the current Proffnett product, both technically and in terms of functionality. The potential in the market is enormous as annual turnover for voice in the business telephony market is approximately NOK 6, 9 billion (source: Gartner). Mobilt Bedriftsnett is our first step towards Unified Communications and will be a key service in ensuring growth in the total market,” claims Worsøe.


Better control and overview of own and other’s availability
A client downloaded to a mobile phone makes it incredibly easy to change availability and to set up telephone conferencing. All incoming calls are referenced with the company’s own ’telephone catalogue’ and the directory enquiries service, Opplysningen 1881. Search is also possible, where the result can be used to make calls, send SMSs or save contacts. As a member of a Mobilt Bedriftsnett network, you will be able to see whether other members are busy or available on their mobile phone. Users can change their status to ’busy’ and select whether calls should be redirected to, for example, the switchboard or other colleagues. By sharing call status and presence with all others in the network, users are better able to manage their availability.

New strategic direction for Telenor
“Telenor has chosen a new strategic direction in allowing third party innovation directly in our mobile network,” says Abraham Foss, head of business markets at Telenor. Through APIs (Application Programming Interface) our partners can integrate services from Mobilt Bedriftsnett with other solutions and applications. This is the first time Telenor has released APIs for direct access to its mobile network.

“By opening up the interface in Mobilt Bedriftsnett, Telenor wishes to signify that we will work differently to create greater innovation closer to our customers. This is a specific expression of our desire to position ourselves closer to our partners. This creates new business models for Telenor and our partners and is something which gives increased value to our common customers. In addition, Telenor wishes to secure a share of the potential earnings that lie outside our core business,” says Abraham Foss.

Integration with third-party, more partners ready
Mobilt Bedriftsnett has a number of APIs that allow partners to integrate status information and click-to-ring functions with their services. These may be used, for example, to integrate call status for mobile phones with switchboards provided by suppliers of private exchanges.
Telenor has entered into agreements with most private exchange suppliers. The following have approved products: Alcatel-Lucent, Telefonselskapet and CBK Telecom. Tore Evensen, Director of Business Development at Alcatel-Lucent, says development of the first version has gone quickly and problem-free. “We look forward to developing this solution for next-generation business communication tools together with Telenor,” says Evensen.

Proweb, as a third-party on Telenor’s network, has developed webofficeone - a mobile CRM solution.

“By using the connectivity Mobilt Bedriftsnett offers we can, together with Telenor, develop an optimal mobile business solution that fuses mobile data and mobile voice. We have received good technical support when developing the new services and are very satisfied with the way Telenor has assisted in the innovation and development of new mobile services for the business market,” says Tommy Dignes, Marketing Director at Proweb.

BluePosition has integrated Mobilt Bedriftsnett with Microsoft Office Communications Server. The result is a more consistent user experience, where Microsoft Office Communicator will show a user as busy while in a call on his mobile phone. - Telenor’s embrace of the principles of Telco 2.0 is very visionary, and Telenor is one of the first operators in the world that has started to deliver on this vision. It has been an exciting process that we are thrilled to be a part of, says Kurt Husebø, Director of Sales for BluePosition in Norway.

Multi-phase launch
The services in Mobilt Bedriftsnett are being delivered in three phases between now and summer 2010. Phase one is for companies with up to 100 employees who wish to move to an entirely mobile platform or integrate their mobiles in a total solution. Testing of the services in phase two is already underway.