(27 August 2007 6:45 pm)

MUMBAI: Gateway Broadcast Services (GTV) has chosen MagnaQuest Technologies for launching their DTH services. It will use the customer management and billing solution provider's flagship product MQSubscribe.

GTV which has operational staff all over Africa and UK with conditional access system in London, is one of the first companies in Africa to provide low cost DTH services, states an official release.

MQSubscribe will be the single convergent customer management and billing (CM&B) platform supporting GTV's network spread over 28 countries across the continent.

The solution facilitates on-line connectivity to the entire network of GTV's regional offices & distributors through web interfaces. Apart from core subscriber management and billing, other crucial business processes at GTV are logistics and inventory, order taking, equipment installation, payments, customer care, messaging, which will be centralized by deploying MQSubscribe.

MQSubscribe will be integrated with NDS conditional access system which activates and deactivates subscriber.

"We chose MQSubscribe for its rich implementation experience in DTH projects and addressing PayTV domains. MQSubscribe has excellent customer management and billing capabilities which will allow us to manage our entire customer base consistently and efficiently," said GBS MD Julian McIntyre. "With this new solution, we expect to achieve faster time-to-market, and also take advantage of the growing, lucrative and highly underserved market," he added.

MagnaQuest VP sales and marketing Rajiv Debbad said, "Our experience and expertise of working with DTH service providers across the globe made us a natural choice for GTV. With our proven domain knowledge, we are fully committed to supporting the business plans of GTV in offering DTH services."

GBS, subsidiary of Gateway Broadcast Services, is a pan-African pay-TV service available in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia and is currently proceeding with a phased roll-out across sub-Saharan Africa.