Intellectual Property in Silicon Valley

• Feature-rich platform set to cause market schism
• Highly flexible: Sell inbound as a self-service or managed solution
• Presents strong opportunities for revenue and market standout

Opal, the dedicated provider of NGN technology for the channel is launching a new market-leading inbound platform ICC/ICE (Intelligent Call Control/Intelligent Call Engine). With its comprehensive feature set, simplicity and flexibility, the 'next generation' platform is Opal's most sophisticated yet and is set to shake up the channel.

Developed with simplicity and flexibility in mind, the platform allows partners to sell inbound through a managed portal (ICC), or build their own inbound portfolio by interfacing into our intelligent network (ICE). Both routes not only offer partners choice, but present powerful new ways to increase revenue and achieve market standout.

The ICC portal can be provided to end-users as a user friendly self-serve solution or sold as a managed service. It allows end-users to fully manage their estate of inbound numbers and to deploy and manage services such as single translations, call divert plans, ratio plans, fax-to-email, scalable call queuing, data capture, time-of-day routing and configurable call attendant. In addition it can be completely white-labelled to allow Partners to offer their own branded portal.

Meanwhile, ICE allows partners to API interface directly into Opal's intelligent Next Generation network - a unique service that no other carrier in the market offers - giving them the opportunity to create their own totally bespoke inbound portals and therefore achieve differentiation in a crowded market. Importantly, partners own the intellectual property rights over their bespoke solutions.

The inbound platform is integrated into Opal's next generation network (NGN), the largest and most penetrating in the UK, meaning it is highly resilient and reliable; while also making it SIP compatible and future-proofed.

Andy Hollingworth, Opal's director of wholesale, said: "ICC/ICE represents the next generation of inbound call technology. Advancements in inbound have meant that the marketplace has shifted and today there is more margin to be made through inbound minutes than outbound. However, the inbound market is hugely competitive, and forward-thinking partners need to look beyond selling generic 'off the shelf' inbound products, and making money exclusively from minutes, in order to maximise the return from this margin rich platform.

"ICC/ICE offers partners the opportunity for added-value services, rather than competing in a diminishing minutes market. Feature-rich, easy to use and extremely powerful, it gives our partners real market choice, while also presenting the opportunity to achieve real standout by creating their own portfolio in inbound products - something that is hugely expensive to establish independently."

Ends

About Opal
Opal provides communication solutions to UK organisations, serving the needs of over 200,000 business and public sector customers and working with over 350 wholesale partners nationwide. Opal has been dedicated to serving the needs of business customers across the UK, since 1993. Opal is the business-to-business division of The TalkTalk Group, the UK's 3rd largest communications network operator, with over 4m broadband customers. The Group has invested over £200m in its Next Generation Network (NGN), which demonstrates their commitment to providing converged ICT solutions that will support UK companies through the 21st Century.

For further information, please visit: www.opal.co.uk or contact Will Ockenden or Eloise Garrett at Lucre on 0113 243 1117; opal@lucrecommunications.com

About ICC/ICE
• ICC gives partners the flexibility to sell inbound either as self-serve or as a managed solution.
• ICE provides an API interface directly into Opal's Next Generation Network allowing partners to bespoke their own solution (and own the Intellectual Property Rights for this)
• The portal can be completely white-labelled for the Partner or even the end-user with no reference to Opal.

Benefits and features include

Management
• Business Management:
- Allows partners to manage their channel infrastructures (Reseller/Dealer sub-accounts can be created and managed).
- End to End management - An Inbound business in a box. (Full management and reporting suite).

• Number Management:
- Allows access to number summaries (a list of all numbers by account, together with type of service / service name, etc.)
- Bulk Upload - allows for multiple numbers to be added to an existing service
- Adding Numbers to sub accounts

• Service Management:
- Reduces the number of supplier touch points. Partners are no longer required to send a request to Opal for service changes or amends.
- Own audio management is a particular highlight.

• Customer Management:
- Allows partners to manage customer experiences and expectations i.e. regarding lead times.

Simplicity and Speed
• Easy to use:
- Service creation/management occurs within a single window.
- Design ensures intuitive use.

• Real time:
- Provisioning - (traditionally there is a lead-time of X before services are made live)
- Moves and changes
• Easy and speedy access to management information

Choice
• Partners can select how they interact with us, either by accessing the managed portal or via core network access interfacing directly into the routing engine (ICE)
• If interfacing directly into the routing engine, partners are able to create there own Inbound portfolio and build into a portal.
• White label / brandable at either partner or end user level.

Capability
• Move Partner's business up the value chain. They can up-sell services at the click of a button, selling a solution rather than just a number.
• Create customer 'stickiness'. Offering and adding more services/solutions makes it difficult and less attractive for customers to move to another carrier.

Inbound services available via ICC and ICE:
• Single translation (Single translation to a UK landline mobile or international number)
• Call divert plans (Divert your calls if busy, on the road or out of hours)
• Ratio plan (Split your calls between site or dept)
• Network hunt groups (cyclic, linear, longest waiting, group multi-call - Intelligently route your calls to different employees in your business.
• Fax to Email (Convert your fax to emails to drop into your inbox)
• Call queuing (Queue your calls in our network)
• Configurable Auto-attendant