LONDON, October 21^st 2008, fring and Austria’s leading mobile network operator, mobilkom austria with its well known product brand A1, announced today the first ever deployment of fring’s mobile VoIP and mobile internet community application for a Tier 1 network operator.

Under the agreement, mobilkom austria will give its customers access to a dedicated version of the fring mobile client, containing fring’s entire open-platform, feature-rich suite of internet based mobile communications & community services, allowing A1 over IP users to talk, chat and interact with each other & all of their online communities, and access fun mobile web applications, using the internet connection capability of their mobile device.

In Phase 1 of the project, the A1 over IP service will be integrated into fring’s SIP service, offering fring users the opportunity of using A1 over IP accounts and also the ability to configure their A1 over IP accounts to work within fring.

Phase 2 will see a fring application being built into mobilkom austria’s mobile offering and pre installed onto a large number of mobile devices.  This will comprise fring’s entire feature set of voice over IP, instant messaging, real-time presence / availability indication, file transfer and access to fring’s new always-on mobile internet applications (fring Add-ons)

A broader set of A1 products and features will also be integrated into fring at this time, providing a true convergence of residential and mobile SIP telephony, mobile community and mobile internet provision.

mobilkom austria customers will now be able to enjoy taking all of their favorite internet communities mobile and effectively enables a new mobile community to be built around the A1 brand.

This is a major development for the mobile industry in general and an important strategic step for fring, demonstrating its leadership position in the mobile internet communication and community space.

It exemplifies the company’s vision of an open mobile communications environment in which new forms of technology and user experience complement the traditional, and the end user is provided with the freedom to choose from a wide range of options, enabling him to conduct his mobile life in the way that best fits his lifestyle and needs.

Avi Shechter, fring’s co-founder and CEO commented: “Today’s announcement by fring and its new partner, mobilkom austria, represents just the beginning of a sea change in the relationship between mobile VoIP and traditional mobile carriers. 

“It demonstrates a recognition by a leading operator that mobile internet based communications and community are a valuable and integral part of their current and future eco system. fring has excellent relationships with a number of global mobile network operators, and we are all working hard to fully realize the opportunity that mobile internet represents for all of us, exploring its position in the value chain and the benefit it delivers in terms of rich, always-on mobile web experiences for our users.”

Dr. Hannes Ametsreiter, CMO mobilkom austria and CMO Telekom Austria TA said: “Internet services and mobile communications will increasingly grow together in the future. We were very early to adopt the international SIP standard. Through the partnership with fring we can demonstrate today how the two worlds will merge in the future."

The agreement will also see fring & mobilkom austria working closely together to distribute and market the new products via a number of initiatives including pre-installation on handsets, a dedicated landing web page, promotion via the fring German-speaking blog, joint media announcements and online activity will publicize the product.

 

 

 

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About fring^tm

fring^tm is a mobile internet community and service that enables its users to talk, chat and interact with other fringsters and their favorite internet services including Skype^®, MSN^® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo!™, AIM^®  and hundreds of SIP providers from their mobile phones. 

 

fring operates on the Voice over Internet Protocol (mVoIP) that allows users to make free calls over mobile and cellular data networks or a Wi-Fi connection. fring uses 3G over mobile phone networks and therefore provides a continuous call connection. fring is 100% free with no subscription costs; consumers simply pay for the data they use under their existing line rental agreement. Completely PC independent, it requires no additional hardware and no location limitations (e.g. Wi-Fi hotspots).

 

The Beta version of fring was made publicly available in January 2007. fring^TM operates on Symbian Series 60 devices, Samsung S60, Sony Ericsson UIQ Smartphones, Windows Mobile, iPhone, J2ME, Linux Mobile  & Intel’s Moblin devices, which currently represent more than 1000 mobile handsetss (the full list is available at http://www.fringcall.com website) 

 

The fring community includes users across more than 200 countries.

·         fring^™  fringster^TM  fringing freedom^{TM ,} , fringAdd-on™ and the fring^TM  logo are all registered trademarks or trademarks of fringland ltd.  All rights reserved. Other trademarks are the trademarks of their respective owners.   fring is independent from, and not affiliated with, those trademarks owners

·         The “Symbian” trademark is a brand and asset of Symbian Software Ltd.

·         This product uses Skype™ but is not endorsed or certified by Skype

For more information, please contact:

Neal Fullman, International Communications Director at fring:
neal@fring,com
Tel +972 54 727 3432

About mobilkom austria

The mobilkom austria group is represented in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, including mobilkom austria in Austria, Vipnet in Croatia, Mobiltel in Bulgaria, Si.mobil in Slovenia, mobilkom liechtenstein in Liechtenstein, Vip mobile in Serbia, Vip operator in Macedonia and MDC in Belarus.

mobilkom austria is the Austrian market leader with 4.3 million mobile customers and a market share of 42,5%. The mobilkom austria group stands for progress: The world''s first launch of GPRS in Austria in 2000, one of Europe’s first commercial UMTS network in Austria in 2003, the introduction of EDGE technology as the first company in Slovenia in 2003 and the first to market introduction worldwide of HSDPA in the UMTS network in January 2006 and HSUPA in February 2007 in the UMTS network by mobilkom austria underscore the group’s leadership in innovations and technology. The know-how transfer among the companies and markets allows a rapid development and implementation of all products and services throughout the entire group.