Interactive USSD Advertising Application

As an innovator and pioneer of USSD-based services, Sicap established a partnership with a major

operator group to capitalise on USSD messaging by integrating sponsored ads.

The goal was to enable brand names or enterprises in a specific region to intelligently target mobile

subscriber groups with promotional messages.

iQuest and Sicap joint forces to create an advertising solution that could allow operators to reach their

customer base in a personalised way through an intelligent mobile ads offering.

The Business Context

The result of our partnership

with iQuest is a reliable and

interactive solution, ready to

cope with USSD potential

for advertising. iQuest’s

hard-work, support and

commitment to the project

have proven to be

invaluable.

Thomas Vontz

COO, Sicap

Telecommunications | Sicap

Telecommunications | Sicap

Software Services Case Study

iQuest was engaged to design, develop and test

the solution that allows ad tagging into a USSD

message, using the remaining number of free

characters after the USSD message body. The

advertising promotion in USSD can be a simple

static text without a service activation command,

or it can be an interactive menu allowing the user

to directly purchase/activate the advertised service

without interrupting the actual USSD session.

Together with Sicap, iQuest created Tails Provider,

a smart application for creating and deploying

advertising messages based on the subscriber’s

profile, message history and assigned priority of

advertisements.

The application was built using JDK 1.7, thus

leveraging new language features and improved

garbage collection (G1 GC). It can run in any server

such as Tomcat, Jetty, Jboss, Weblogic. The

performance was carefully optimised in order to

ensure the best user experience.

Tails Provider was designed to run on multiple

nodes, each connecting to the underlying

database, that is itself on multiple nodes and

synchronised using Oracle RAC.

The Solution The Business Impact

Tails Provider ensures smooth integration for

interactions with other internal systems,

including the billing system. It also provides

interfaces for the Tails GUI in order to create,

update, modify and approve tail texts as well as

manage domain entities associated with tails

(service plans, service codes, market codes,

marketing initiatives, services & service content)

and system parameters like default texts and

global configurations.

Mobile operators can exploit the USSD

advertising solution for multiple, widely used

services, capitalising on both volume and

scope. For the operator, the financial gains are

not offset by any technical challenges or

network capacity strains. When subscribers

request information from their handset menu,

the USSD tail simply fills up the otherwise

wasted space, without causing an additional

load on the network.

The USSD interactive advertising solution

completes the range of services already

available on this channel, allowing operators to

further exploit the advertising potential in a

very simple, user-friendly manner.

Mobile operators can

exploit the USSD

advertising solution for

multiple, widely used

services, capitalising on

both volume and scope.

Copyright 2015, iQuest Group. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from

iQuest. All other product names, service marks, and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

iQuest is an independent, global IT services and solutions provider that for more than 17 years has been delivering

first-class software solutions to leading companies in Life Sciences, Telecom, Transportation, Financial Services, and

Energy. With a growing international presence, iQuest provides a full range of software development services,

integration services, and software products, all of which rely on the latest commerce, cloud, big data, and analytics

platforms.

Headquartered in Germany, iQuest currently employs more than 600 people, distributed across delivery centers in

Romania, as well as local and affiliate offices in Europe, the US and Asia.

www.iquestgroup.com

About iQuest

For more information on this project, please contact:

business@iquestgroup.com

Sicap is a global leader in software solutions for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

With almost 20 years of experience, Sicap has over 920 million subscribers and a strong market presence with an

impressive list of customers featuring 120 MNOs across EMENA, Africa, Russia, and Southeast Asia.

www.sicap.com

About Sicap