Billing and OSS companies CustomCall Data Systems and Concretio.com are merging in a deal that could put extra pressure on rural and Tier 2 rivals.
CustomCall made the announcement on Jan. 20; it didn’t disclose the financial terms, although that’s no shocker since it and Concretio are privately held. CustomCall did tell Billing & OSS World, though, that together the companies boast 70 communications service provider customers in the wireline, wireless, cable, IPTV and VoIP markets. And combining operations will give clients complete lifecycle management, CustomCall said.
Thanks to that, operators can expect “off-the-shelf integration, and greater interoperability with third-party systems,” Frank Peregrine, CEO of CustomCall, said in a prepared statement. Indeed, the strategy should ease back-office functions for customers, who won’t need to integrate platforms from multiple vendors. Besides billing, CustomCall offers taxation, E-911, credit score retrieval, provisioning and credit collection services.
Putting those functions in a one-stop-shop setting is bound to appeal to CustomCall and Concretio target users – and, frankly, the transaction could spur copycat M&A in the billing and OSS sector.
“I think that as operators recognize the value in back-office software to help them reduce operational costs and improve the customer experience, that cycle can only ramp up,” said Shira Levine, the directing analyst for OSS at Infonetics Research.
Meantime, the CustomCall-Concretio transaction should close within the first quarter. The combined company will take on the CustomCall name, but keep the CustomCall facilities in Madison, Wis., and Concretio’s operations and employees in Naperville, Ill. Kevin Williams will retain his Concretio CEO title for now, CustomCall said.
There was no immediate word on how the merger will affect Concretio’s partnership with back-office provider DCA Services. The two companies since late 2008 have offered hosted services to CLECs.
