Arieso Strengthens Senior Team with CTO Appointment.

Michael Flanagan Leaves Bell Labs for Up-Start in Automated Network Optimisation and Capital Planning

LONDON -- Michael Flanagan has been appointed the new CTO of Arieso. He joins the Newbury UK-based mobile network optimisation firm from Lucent Technologies in the US. Flanagan will be based in the US where Arieso has recently opened its offices in Atlanta, and will work closely with the firm's other senior technologists. He is charged with bringing the company's unique vision for a new generation of optimisation technologies to life for Arieso's global customers.

An internationally recognised expert in network optimisation, Flanagan spent the last 12 years at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs in New Jersey, a hothouse for innovation in mobile communications. At Bell Labs, he worked on many aspects of wireless communications systems, ranging from channel element design to network design and optimisation, and gained considerable international experience.

Welcoming Dr Flanagan, Shirin Dehghan, Arieso CEO, says: "Michael joins at a critical time in our development, when he will be instrumental in helping us consolidate our technology leadership and build on our early successes with clients including Vodafone, Qualcomm, Cingular and O2. As mobile networks continue to evolve in power and complexity, we believe Michael is especially well placed to ensure that Arieso continues to raise the bar on what network optimisation technology delivers to the mobile industry."

"This is a great opportunity to join one of the best teams in the business," says Flanagan. "Arieso's founders, Shirin Dehghan and Chief Scientist Dr Moshen Koochak, are themselves highly accomplished technologists. They've amassed an excellent track record with some of the world's biggest and best network operators. So what's next? Our goal is to embed customer satisfaction and self-healing into the very DNA of the wireless network; operators and their customers deserve no less."

Flanagan received a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, in 1990, and MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1991 and 1995 respectively. While a National Science Foundation Fellow at Caltech he worked part-time at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Deep Space Network projects including the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

About Arieso

With its unique vision for intelligent mobile networks with the ability to 'self-heal' or adapt automatically to the widest possible set of conditions, and a proven track record with leading operators worldwide, Arieso is on a mission to completely transform the quality of service that operators provide to world's mobile users. A recognised industry leader, the company was founded in 2002 and now serves customers in the US, Europe and Asia including Cingular, O2, Vodafone, Qualcomm, EuroTel Praha and Telefonica. Arieso operates from offices in Newbury, UK and Atlanta, Georgia. Its investors include Add Partners and Top Technology.