Internet telephony is booming with the rapid proliferation of broadband deployment and service providers like Skype, which is often seen as a disruptive technology. But innovative mobile operators and handset manufacturers are keen to find ways to exploit this new and exciting telephony method, such that they can offer new services and enjoy the additional revenues they could bring. But for Skype to become mainstream, it must be supportable in familiar ways and will require Operational Support Systems (OSS) such that operators can manage it. Argogroup's new Skype capabilities that have been incorporated into Monitor Master, allows handset manufacturers and mobile operators to test Skype services including both voice calling and instant messaging (IM). Monitor Master customers will be able to run tests to ensure that traditional telephony applications that utilize DTMF and interactive voice response are able to respond to Skype calls. In addition, Monitor Master will also measure the subjective quality of a Skype call by using the Psytechnics PESQ algorithm which produces a synthetic Mean Opinion Score.

Paul Nerger, Senior VP of Marketing and Business Development at Argogroup, said," Skype is hot, With millions of consumers who have already tried Skype, innovative telecommunications companies are working hard to find ways of adding value to their consumers who want it. But if Skype is to become the type of mission critical service it can be, it must have the tools to test and continually monitor its quality of service. With the addition of Skype to Monitor Master, we are the first to bring the type of traditional OSS quality tools to this hot new technology." He continued, "Skype may be hot but, as with any new telecommunications service, it must ensure quality of service or risk customers going elsewhere, which requires robust OSS tools."

Winner of the GSMA Best Infrastructure/Network Solution Product 2004 and Frost & Sullivan's Excellence in Technology Award 2004, Monitor Master is a user experience optimisation platform. It mimics real users doing real things on mobile devices, identifying issues that affect user experience including usability, compliance, interoperability and performance. It is 300 times more efficient than manual testing and the one platform supports the assessment of all mobile technologies available such as SMS, EMS, MMS, WAP, J2ME, ring-tones, graphics, video, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), e-mail and Web.

About Argogroup

Argogroup specialises in optimizing user experience for mobile services, a discipline that focuses on the interaction between network, service and handset. The company's two software products - Monitor Master and Device Master - help handset manufacturers and mobile operators test, monitor and develop products and services so that users spend more time and money on them.

Monitor Master is the world's leading User Experience Optimization platform, in use in over 50 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers worldwide. Device Master automatically creates detailed handset profiles so that all device data is held in a central knowledge base.

Argogroup is backed by Apax Partners Funds and 3i. Its headquarters are near Guildford, UK, with offices in Seattle, Portland, Pleasanton, Paris and Stockholm, Milan, Hong Kong and Beijing. For more information, visit: http://www.argogroup.com/