Redknee Supports Digicel to Offer Prepaid Energy in Asia Pacific

TORONTO, Feb. 17, 2015 /CNW/ - Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN), a leading provider of real-time monetization and subscriber management software, is pleased to announce that it is supporting Digicel, a leading global group mobile network operator, to offer prepaid electricity to residents and business owners in Papua New Guinea. Digicel has been using Redknee's converged billing solution to provide its customers with prepaid and postpaid offerings for voice, messaging and data. The flexibility of Redknee's software is now also allowing Digicel to monetize other digital services across various industries, including utilities and other future business opportunities.

Redknee's converged billing system is supporting Digicel's Easypay 'Easipawa' prepaid electricity metering service, enabling Digicel customers to purchase electricity at any time directly from their mobile phone. Energy customers simply enter their meter number and the required amount of electricity, receive an SMS message confirmation, and the payment is deducted directly from their Digicel airtime balance. Digicel's postpaid customers can also utilize the prepaid electricity service and the purchased amount of energy is added to the monthly bill.

Redknee's converged solution addresses the full range of Digicel's billing requirements. With Redknee, Digicel is able to increase revenue and differentiation by offering its communications subscribers' real-time targeted promotions, service bundles, incentives and hybrid payment options such as family or group account plans. In addition, Redknee is supporting Digicel to deliver an advanced business model and generate new revenue streams by providing energy customers with the ability to purchase electricity via their mobile phone through Digicel's network. Working in partnership with the country's incumbent electricity utility provider, Digicel and Redknee provided an alternative solution to the existing prepaid electricity voucher top-up payment method, where rural customers had to travel long distances to vending sites that were only available during business hours. This was time consuming, costly and inconvenient for the customer.

John Mangos, CEO at Digicel commented: 
"Digicel has worked in partnership with Redknee for some years to expand our service offerings and increase our market presence. Redknee's converged billing solution is supporting Digicel to launch new data services and provide advanced customer care capabilities to enhance the experience of our customers. With Redknee, the Digicel Easypay 'Easipawa' service, which uses a combination of USSD and SMS technologies, allows Digicel customers to use any mobile phone to purchase electricity anytime, anywhere. In less than 18 months Digicel has achieved a positive ROI, and today, Easipawa is responsible for a large majority of all pre-paid electricity purchases in Papua New Guinea."

Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO at Redknee commented: 
"We are pleased to support Digicel's growth strategy to deliver converged billing into the energy sector. Utilizing Redknee's converged billing solution, Digicel has the capability and agility to efficiently manage their subscribers and service revenue through a centralized platform. The utilities sector and other verticals such as health and transportation are increasingly providing avenues for communications service providers to increase customer loyalty, increase revenues and improve profitability. At Redknee, we will continue to invest in our real-time software to support service providers worldwide, and advance our position as the provider of choice for monetization and subscriber management solutions."

Redknee provides a complete portfolio of monetization and subscriber management solutions for communications service providers (CSPs) across the world. Redknee enables CSPs to monetize and optimize the subscriber experience across the entire customer lifecycle. From activation and provisioning, to supporting a 360 degree view of the customers' usage, preferences, and integration with third party social media sites, to empowering customers with self-care tools and the ability to pay for services on the go, Redknee offers one of the most comprehensive real-time converged charging, policy management, billing and customer care solutions in the industry. Redknee's highly scalable and flexible solutions enable CSPs to monetize third party relationships and content, support resellers and dealers and launch multi-country operations quickly, effectively and with a low total cost of ownership. Available on-premise, cloud-based and as a Software-as-a-Service offering, Redknee delivers a complete monetization and subscriber management solution to more than 200 service providers, including some of the largest Tier 1 operators in the world.

About Redknee:
Redknee is a leading global provider of innovative software products, solutions and services. Redknee's award-winning solutions enable service providers to monetize new services, business models and content and to deliver a connected customer experience - through either SaaS or on-premise based solutions. Redknee's real-time monetization and subscriber management platform provides innovative converged charging, billing, policy management, and customer care solutions for over 200 communications service providers and is supporting service providers to monetize digital services across utilities and smart meters, transportation, connected homes and vehicles, and other enterprises that are emerging from the growing ecosystem of the Internet of Things (IOT).  Established in 1999, Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) is the parent of the wholly-owned operating subsidiary Redknee Inc. and its various subsidiaries. References to Redknee refer to the combined operations of those entities. For more information about Redknee and its solutions, please go to www.redknee.com.

SOURCE Redknee Solutions Inc.