fring Eliminates Roaming Costs for French Mobile Users

Frisco, Texas - September 24, 2013 – fring, whose  mobile IP communications service was recently acquired by GENBAND, a leading developer of multimedia and cloud communications solutions, announced that French operator Bouygues Telecom has selected the fring Over the Top (OTT) service to provide Bouygues customers with free phone calls and SMS on Wi-Fi while abroad.

This summer’s successful launch of Bouygues Telecom’s popular World & YOU service for their B&YOU brand yielded very positive feedback from customers who enjoyed free calls and SMSs while abroad.

“Our customers expect high quality, low cost mobile service which, thanks to the fring service, we can now extend beyond local French cellular coverage, allowing subscribers to enjoy international communication as if they were calling from within France,” said Benoît Torloting, Head of digital & B&YOU at Bouygues Telecom. “Leveraging the fring OTT solution, we eliminate cellular network roaming charges and deliver our commitment to quality-cost competitive advantage even when our customers are travelling worldwide.”  Benoît Torloting continued, “Our World & YOU launch was a great success, with an increase in new users and substantial interest from the French market.”

“This successful offering with Bouygues Telecom demonstrates market demand for the fring Telco OTT solution, which enables telecom operators to provide their subscribers with cost-saving communications, a rich user experience and reduced churn to independent applications,” said Roy Timor-Rousso, former CEO of fring and current senior executive in GENBAND’s Multimedia Business Unit. “Leveraging our extensive experience in mobile applications and telco-grade cloud network, we were able to provide Bouygues Telecom with a complete solution - with rapid time-to-market within weeks of defining their unique needs.”

See a short video of the fring-powered World & YOU service for Bouygues Telecom World & YOU subscribers here.

About Bouygues Telecom
As a full-service electronic communications operator (mobile, fixed, TV, Internet and cloud computing), Bouygues Telecom stands out for its innovative products and services and award-winning customer relations serving its 11.3 million mobile and 1.9 million fixed broadband customers, which include more than 1.5 million professional and corporate clients and more than 1.6 million B&YOU clients.

After inventing the mobile talk-plan concept in France in 1996, Bouygues Telecom has always been a pioneer in innovation: it introduced the first unlimited call plans with Millennium (1999) and Neo (2006); in 2007, it launched the first fixed-mobile convergence offer for corporate customers; in 2009, it invented the “all-in-one” solution with ideo, the first quadruple play offer in the market; and, as early as July 2011, it invented mobile telephony 2.0 with B&YOU, the first SIM-only Web-Only offer. In June 2012, Bouygues Telecom launched Bbox Sensation, its new range of routers packed with the most innovative technologies on the market that will transform the digital home experience.

Its mobile network covers 99% of the French population with 2G, 96% with 3G+ up to 7,2 Mbit/s and 60% with H+ up to 42 Mbit/s. Bouygues Telecom is also deploying a nationwide 4G network covering over 100 cities, bringing 40% of the French population access to 4G from October 2013.

2,000 customer relations advisers, a distribution network of 650 Clubs Bouygues Telecom stores - with their 2,500 sales advisers - and its websites combine to ensure optimum customer service on a daily basis. www.bouyguestelecom.fr

About GENBAND & fring
GENBAND is a global leader in smart networking solutions from the Core to the Edge to the Experience for service providers and enterprises in over 80 countries. The company’s technology improves IP networks by making them more scalable, secure, profitable and efficient. GENBAND’s market-leading technology supports multimedia voice, data and video sessions and fixed-mobile unified communications applications that scale on public and private networks. With a flexible, cloud-ready platform, GENBAND’s IMS, edge and application solutions help its customers compete effectively by increasing revenues, improving profitability, and attracting and retaining customers. To learn more, visit us on the web at www.GENBAND.com.

The fring service (www.fring.com) was launched in 2006 as a mobile voice-over-internet communication solution. The multi-million-user fring consumer application enables peer-to-peer voice and video calls, chat and conferencing as well as telephony services such as outgoing and incoming calls and SMS. The fring solution leverages the mobile phone's internet connection to create these communication experiences. GENBAND’s fring service is available on all major Smartphones & tablets (including iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, Android and Nokia), on any mobile service provider, and any mobile internet connection (3G/4G, Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE) and it continues to grow exponentially with tens of millions of users in more than 200 countries, adding more than a million new Smartphone users every month. In 2012, the fring solution added a white-label Telecom OTT offering for mobile and landline carriers, enterprise and ISPs, providing high quality, low cost mobile communication over Internet services. 

fring®, fringster™, the fring™ logo, DVQ™, GENBAND, and the GENBAND logo and icon are trademarks of GENBAND.

Company Contact:
Joe McGarvey
GENBAND
+1 (972) 521 5826
joe.mcgarvey@genband.com