The system turns a mobile telephone into a popular real-time telecommunications channel.
 
by Efi Landau
 
Partner Communications (Nasdaq: PTNRLSE:PCCD) is launching an interactive broadcasting service on wireless telephone screens this week. The service is called Orange Promo. The service which is displayed on the company website, offers continually updated information flashes and entertainment on the device's screen. The customer pays only if he dials for a continuation of the broadcast, not for the initial display.
The service is based on technology that Partner acquired from Israeli company Celltick Software Technologies, which enables telecommunications operators to provide subscribers with an interactive telecommunications channel, designed to constitute an engine for revenue from value added services. The system uses the mobile telephone monitoring system to provide real time information directly to the device screen, without disrupting the regular telephone function or bothering the user.

The system creates a new medium, which turns a mobile telephone into a popular real-time telecommunications channel, similar to a mini-television, offering subscribers direct and convenient access to a wide variety of content and applications.

Celltick has already sold a similar system to China Unicom, China's second largest wireless telephone operator, which has installed it in Shenyang. The system has also been sold to five wireless operators in India belonging to the Hutchison Whampoa group, to which Partner also belongs.

The initial cost of the system is $400,000. Under the business model, Celltick receives royalties from the wireless operators on all service revenue. Celltick VP marketing Ronen Daniel told Globes that the systems have already been operating in India for 10 months. One million of the five Indian companies' 2.5 million subscribers are hooked up to the service, of whom 900,000 are using it, and 60% are clicking on the services and creating revenue for the operators.

Investors in Celltick include Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP); Italian company Compagnie Industriali Riunite (CIR), controlled by Carlo De Benedetti, who has also invested in JVP; and British fund Elwin Capital Partners (ECP).

Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on October 30, 2003