Omnitel Pronto Italia SpA is about to begin work on a personal numbering service it would like to launch sometime in 1998, says Barbara Poggiali. Omnitel’s vice-president for strategy and business planning was speaking in Paris at the Telecoms Competition in Europe event sponsored by IBC Technical Services Ltd and Digital Equipment Corp. She has hired an American, part-time, to begin looking at the issue, and to help Omnitel formulate a service plan. The new recruit, Jim Kline, whose experience is mostly in public switching at Northern Telecom Ltd, Bell Northern Research and Bell Canada, said that personal numbering is only one of several projects he is likely to pursue. They are looking at a whole bunch of things, but single numbering is probably their biggest priority, he said, adding that 1998 may just be a general target date. Still, says Kline, also studying for a master’s degree at Milan’s Universita Bocconi, I look at single numbering as something that could be done today, as long as you can get the customer directory numbers to bring in the traffic. It wouldn’t even have to be a toll-free number, although I’m sure Omnitel could get one from Telecom Italia if necessary.
By Marsha Johnston
But before Omnitel can offer personal numbering or anything else, said Ms Poggiali, the Italian Parliament must pass the deregulatory legislation under discussion, which would set up an independent regulator and deregulate alternative infrastructures, enabling Omnitel to buy from groups other than Telecom Italia Mobile SpA. In the US, MCI Communications Corp offers a personal numbering service via an 800 number, which enables callers to locate the person by punching the personal number into th e keypad, whereupon the call is routed. In Europe, Vodafone Group Plc offered clients the option in September and Telia Mobitel AB acknowledges working on it as well. In addition to the on-the-fly call routing used by MCI, an operator can also have callers pre-select where they want calls routed at what times of day. I don’t know which approach Omnitel is looking at right now, Kline said, adding that in any case, the systems available today are very sophisticated. At the conference, Tel Aviv-based Comverse Technology Inc, which provides such equipment, appeared very anxious to talk to Omnitel. [Comverse] is one of the big players. They are doing really well in Canada, where Microcell is a major client, Kline said. Microcell is an e merging cellular communications provider in Canada. We will be working on other things targeted at 1998, Kline continues. I’ll be recommending technologies and defining tools to enable Omnitel to take more business away from TIM!
