LinkRich Picks Taral for MMS

LEXINGTON, Mass. -- Taral Networks (www.taralnetworks.com), a provider of infrastructure to wireless operators and content aggregators, today announced that LinkRich Telecommunications (www.linkrich.com), a leading Chinese content aggregator, has selected Taral Networks' AirNgine Application-to-Person (A2P) MMS Gateway to make multimedia messaging services (MMS) available to LinkRich customers. With its selection by LinkRich, Taral Networks' technology, already deployed by leading content aggregators in Europe and North America, marks its introduction into the Asian market. AirNgine has successfully completed feature and local content testing through LinkRich's SMS platform link with China Mobile's gateway, with full deployment scheduled for late June.

LinkRich owns one of the six Mobile Service Access Licenses available in China and works in conjunction with China Mobile to provide SMS and MMS-based value added services to more than 125 million China Mobile subscribers. The company's customers include the China Post, China Internet Association, China Police (Ministry of Public Security), China Mayor's Association, China Economic and Trade Committee, Beijing TV, Hunan TV and more.

Taral Networks' Application-to-Person MMS Gateway will provide carrier-grade connectivity for LinkRich's MMS messaging service offering. LinkRich's MMS offering will allow mobile operators, media companies and marketers to cost-effectively deliver high-quality images with audio and enhanced text and present a media-rich experience to the customer. Because Taral Networks' technology enables MMS delivery without the need for an MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Services Center), LinkRich's customers will enjoy lower image delivery costs. Under the terms of the agreement, LinkRich and Taral Networks will share revenues generated by LinkRich's MMS offering.

"We surveyed the capabilities of many SMS/MMS platform providers. Taral Networks has the most state-of-the-art platform as well as the ability to rapidly provision, test and deploy new third-party applications and content," said Xulin Niu, LinkRich's CEO. "With 16 billion SMS messages sent in 2001 and 90 billion sent in 2002, SMS' success in China demonstrates the strong consumer demand for content. China, the largest mobile country in the world, has more than 230 million mobile users today. With 250 billion SMS/MMS messages forecast for 2003, LinkRich chose Taral Networks' AirNgine to allow us to accelerate our MMS offering and enjoy the superior throughput provided by the AirNgine MMS Gateway."

Interoperable with leading MMSCs or operable without an MMSC, the AirNgine A2P MMS Gateway was developed to address the requirements of operators who wish to tap the huge potential of A2P MMS while avoiding the need to make costly infrastructure investments. With AirNgine, Taral Networks is the only company with the technology and expertise to meet all of the requirements of A2P MMS, including device management, content adaptation and optimization, value-added service provider (VASP) management and subscriber content controls, worldwide operator independent message delivery and digital rights management as well as carrier-grade scalability and reliability.

"With AirNgine, network operators' infrastructures no longer present an obstacle to offering high-impact MMS messaging services," said Vinit Nijhawan, president and CEO of Taral Networks. "We believe that SMS and MMS will drive revenues in the Chinese mobile market, and that LinkRich's ability to rapidly provision exciting, creative content from third-party providers will enable both our companies to quickly capitalize on this booming market. This, coupled with the lower cost per message and superior throughput AirNgine offers as compared to an MMSC, will secure our mutual success in China's price-sensitive market environment."

Taral Networks