3GSM World Congress
First Hop, a leader in mobile middleware, and SFR (France) today announced that SFR has chosen First Hop Wireless Broker for the delivery of application and content messaging services.
SFR is the second largest operator in France with over 14 million subscribers. SFR uses First Hop Wireless Broker to power its value-added messaging business. Today the most commonly used services include applications such as infotainment, news, and gaming. First Hop Wireless Broker products, Message Router and Service Manager, are already in production use at SFR.
“We were searching the market for messaging middleware flexibility, high performance, and service provisioning capabilities that could take our business to the next level”, said the SFR project manager. “We selected First Hop Wireless Broker to enhance the quality of our messaging services since it not only fulfilled our general selection criteria, but also came with the trust factor of well-known, production-proven customer references.
“We had very limited time available for adapting and deploying the First Hop solution into our network and existing messaging infrastructure. We were impressed with the speed and professionalism with which the First Hop staff implemented the project, on specification and on time”.
SFR is the latest mobile operator to join First Hop’s impressive list of references for First Hop Wireless Broker. The product is already licensed to over 30 mobile networks across the world. The positive development of First Hop has not gone unnoticed in the industry – a few weeks ago, the company won the Finnish Software Industry 2004 Award for International Breakthrough.
“We are truly delighted that SFR has chosen First Hop technology for its fast-growing value added messaging services.” states Timo T Laaksonen, CEO of First Hop. “This contract also marks our entry into the French market with First Hop Wireless Broker. We look forward to working in close collaboration with SFR, supporting their significant business growth with quality products and reliable services,” adds Laaksonen.