ICE Costa Rica Launches Push

RNS Number : 1674S

Synchronica PLC

06 September 2010

 



Synchronica plc

('Synchronica' or 'the Company')

ICE Costa Rica Launches Push Email Service using Synchronica Mobile Gateway

Highlights:

·     Costa Ricas incumbent operator Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) launches "Syncronizate".

·     Syncronizate provides push Email and mobile synchronization to the ICE Acelera webmail service.

·     Service provided free of charge to Acelera and GPRS data subscribers.

San Jose, Costa Rica/London, UK: September 6, 2010 --Synchronica plc, the international provider of next-generation mobile messaging services, announces that Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), Costa Rica's incumbent telecommunications provider, has launched its mass-market push Email service based on Synchronica's award-winning Mobile Gateway middleware. 

The ICE service, branded Syncronizate, will be used to add new push functionality to the existing ICE webmail service - Acelera. The Syncronizate service will be provided free of charge to any Acelera or Internet GPRS subscriber.

Syncronizate allows Costa Rican consumer, prosumer and business subscribers to enjoy push Email and synchronization services without needing to upgrade or replace their existing mobile handsets. Synchronica's Mobile Gateway provides 100% device compatibility by using the built-in Email and synchronization clients found in a wide range of handsets, in addition to Email-to-MMS and Email-to-SMS for basic handsets.

Oscar Arias, Director, Services Division at ICE, commented: "For a push Email service to succeed in Costa Rica it needs to be affordable and to work on any handset, from high-end Smartphones down to entry-level devices. Synchronica's solution ticked both boxes and we're excited to be launching our cost-effective Syncronizate push Email and mobile synchronization service to all of our subscribers." 

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, added: "Mobile operators are looking at data services to shore up declining revenues caused by falling voice tariffs. We are finding that a growing number of mobile operators from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America are turning to Synchronica Mobile Gateway as a solution. Mobile Email has proven to be a very appealing data service, which can help to reduce churn and improve ARPU. Mobile Gateway provides push Email on literally all handsets, enabling operators to extend data services successfully to the mass-market. "

Commenting on the Latin American market, Nick Jotischky, Principal Analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media, said: "Mobile non-voice services, such as mobile Email, continue to grow and become more important to operator strategies in Latin America.  This latest contract win for Synchronica in Latin America with its 'mobile Email for all' solution is a case in point. The size of the non-voice market grew by 38% in 2008 to reach US$11bn, of which US$4.5bn comprised the non-SMS data market. Indeed, the number of non-SMS data subscribers (GPRS, CDMA2000 1x and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO) was in excess of 25 million across the region at the end of 2008 accounting for an 18% rise during the year."

Synchronica plc	Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO	[phone]
	Angus Dent, CFO	[phone]
www.synchronica.com	Nicole Meissner, COO	[phone]
FinnCap	Clive Carver , Nomad	[phone]
	Charlotte Stranner, Corporate Finance	[phone]
	Stephen Norcross, Corporate Broker	[phone]
Walbrook PR Ltd	Paul McManus	[phone]
		[phone]
		[e-mail]

About Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad

The Grupo ICE founded in 1949, is a state owned holding composed of ICE (Electricity and Telecommunications Sectors) and their companies: Radiografica Costarricense SA (RACSA) and Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz S.A (CNFL), which developed their expansion  through various modernization projects executed in recent decades. In the field of telecommunications, industrial and technological growth experienced by the country since 1985, prompted the Grupo ICE to enter the digital era and currently with the 3G (UMTS) mobile technology, with platforms for IPTV and VoIP (voice over television and Internet Protocol), has allowed ICE to become a triple play operator, ie, sending instant voice, data and video, and also to provide faster communications and the incorporation of new value added services.

ICE, based in San Jose, Costa Rica, is the dominant market operator, not only because of the loyalty of the citizens but with a top-level organizational structure with a presence all across the country. With these favorable conditions, ICE continues to advance in its efforts to reduce the digital divide, providing the country with a high-quality connectivity and bandwidth at each corner and at every village, so that the world of opportunities is accessible to each of the inhabitants.

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc is a leading developer of next-generation mobile messaging solutions based on open industry standards. The award-winning product portfolio includes the flagship product Mobile Gateway, providing push Email, synchronization, instant messaging (IM), backup and restore, and mobile connectivity to social networks. Synchronica's products are white-labeled and offered by mobile operators in emerging and developed markets to provide mass market messaging services, increasing data revenues and reducing churn.

Synchronica Mobile Gateway provides a unique multi-protocol gateway combining Push IMAP, SyncML, ActiveSync, Email to MMS, and Email to SMS, delivering push Email and synchronization to literally any mobile phone currently in the market without requiring an additional client to be downloaded. Expanding instant messaging to mobile devices, Mobile Gateway establishes carrier-branded IM communities, using the industry standard XMPP and provides gateways to popular internet IM communities, connecting any IMPS-enabled handset.

Headquartered in England, Synchronica also maintains a development center in Germany, in addition to a regional presence in the USA, Hong Kong, and Dubai. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC.L). For further information, please visit www.synchronica.com

 

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