Syndesis is First to Successfully Deploy Broadband ``Service-to-Bill'' Revenue Assurance in Tier 1 Environment.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 2003

Syndesis delivers the knowledge needed to identify,

correct and prevent revenue leakage 

Syndesis, the company that brings networks to life globally, today announced that it has successfully implemented a revenue assurance solution, which enables carriers to identify, correct and prevent revenue leakage, at a Tier 1 telecommunications company. The Syndesis NetDiscover(TM)-based solution automates network upload and service discovery, culminating in "service-to-bill" discrepancy reporting, allowing service providers to pick up where the "switch-to-bill" process drops off. Syndesis quickly isolates the location and extent of revenue leakage to facilitate service or billing database corrections. Syndesis' revenue assurance offering serves as the basis for root cause analysis and process re-engineering required to avoid future revenue loss. Because NetDiscover shields users from the complexity of network technology and is highly configurable to specific business environments, service providers' financial and revenue assurance specialists can easily prioritize investigation of only those problems with a high probability of recovering revenue or stranded assets.

"Broadband revenue assurance problems have festered for years because carriers lacked the tools to audit the network efficiently," said Dan Baker, Research Director for Technology Research Institute (TRI) and co-author of the recent report Revenue Assurance, Mediation and Cost Management Solutions in Telecommunications. "Broadband is much harder to assure than voice. You don't have a handy identifier like the POTS phone number to map back into billing. Instead, you have to reconcile with a highly complex, multi-vendor network -- a task financial software was never designed to do. That's why the Syndesis tool is so revolutionary. For the first time, finance experts can actually peer into the network black box to detect under-billing and lost assets. And rewards will be huge. Industry-wide, we see broadband assurance as a multi-billion dollar savings opportunity."

Interpreting Network Knowledge

"Broadband service-to-bill reconciliation is a unique offering. Only Syndesis has proven the ability to query the network, pinpoint the physical equipment, understand the logical connections and then discover the services on top of it all," said Mark Nicholson, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Product Management for Syndesis. "Syndesis has a deep knowledge of interrogating switches and routers plus a broad knowledge of services that overlay that network."

Accurate Data is Critical to Revenue Recovery

A significant portion of lost revenue stems from inconsistencies between services as they exist in the network and the way those services are represented in a provider's BSS and OSS. With accurate service data uploaded directly from the network by Syndesis, service providers can ensure a comprehensive data revenue assurance program.

Advanced Service Discovery

Based on data uploaded directly from the network by NetDiscover and on subscriber service-level information, Syndesis uses a combination of top-down and bottom-up service modelling techniques to build an accurate representation of existing services in the provider's network. Syndesis delivers a single repository of accurate end-to-end service data, physical and logical topology data, and the relationships between the two.

NetDiscover's customizable reports serve as the basis for leakage correction, enabling providers to rectify discrepancies either manually or through an automated tool such as Syndesis NetProvision(TM), rapidly correcting instances of over-billing or under-billing.

Service-Aware Revenue Assurance

Based on NetDiscover's unique service discovery capabilities and discrepancy analysis and reporting, Syndesis' revenue assurance solution delivers key benefits to service providers:

-- Billing reconciliation: Carriers gain a useful identifier to

bounce off the billing system and ensure provisioned services

are being billed for (and billed services are provisioned).

-- Quality of Service (QoS) reconciliation: Service providers can

now pinpoint where customers are getting a higher level of

service than they've paid for.

-- Asset reconciliation: Carriers reclaim valuable network

resources and avoid costly capital investments in new network

equipment.

-- Restoration of data integrity: Providers reduce fallout and

related customer churn, revenue leakage, and network/OSS

inconsistencies.

ABOUT SYNDESIS

Syndesis (www.Syndesis.com) helps the world's leading telecommunications companies recover stranded network assets and identify unbilled customer services, enabling their return to active use and the recovery of associated revenue leakage. Through this reconciliation process, Syndesis software solutions produce an immediate return on investment. Furthermore, the software generates long term payback by provisioning and delivering new data services to customers quickly, reliably and profitably. Syndesis has proven success in multi-vendor, multi-technology networks with millions of subscribers and is deployed at more than 20 major communications providers worldwide. Award-winning Syndesis is leading a strategic alliance of key industry heavyweights to offer a complete network solution. Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks recommend and sell Syndesis software to their customers.