Intec, a global provider of Business and Operations Support Systems (BSS/OSS) for fixed, mobile and next-generation networks, has announced that it has won the prestigious "Project of the Year" award given by Russia's Billing Computer Telephony magazine. The honour was given to Intec for the successful delivery of its InterconnecT billing solution at Golden Telecom, a leading facilities-based provider of integrated telecommunications and Internet services in major population centres throughout Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Billing Computer Telephony Magazine recognises the best vendors in the operations support system sector of the telecommunications industry at its annual awards run in conjunction with the Billing IT Telecom exhibition. A panel of industry experts, nominated by the magazine editors, selected the finalists in the Project of the Year category.

"It is a great privilege to be nominated for this award alongside many other leading companies," said Kevin Adams, CEO of Intec. "We attribute our company's progress and substantial achievements in Russia to the employees that have worked closely with our customer to achieve a swift and successful implementation."

The award's judges were impressed by the speed of the project's initial implementation phase, which took six months to complete and included the modelling of some of Golden Telecom's major interconnecting partners. Intec outlined a clear implementation strategy and thanks to InterconnecT's flexible GUI, Golden Telecom's staff was able to take full ownership of the system after initial training. InterconnecT easily managed the whole range of Golden Telecom's existing interconnect agreements from Tier 1 operators to start-up ISPs.  It also gave the operator the flexibility to capture unique billing scenarios so that the discounting and volume based rating features - that are an attractive component of Golden's wholesale offering - could be captured. 

In addition, InterconnecT also provided the data models in both Cyrillic and Russian, an important feature when partners are both international and Russian. InterconnecT's bulk loaders facilitated the rapid input and upload of this material in both English and Russian.

"In operating InterconnecT, Golden Telecom expects to gain significant business benefits by combining accurate charging with flexible and detailed reporting," said a representative from Golden Telecom. "The capability to drill down and define specific billing errors will also enable us to gain greater operational control resulting in reduced network expenditure and maximised interconnect revenue streams."