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ClearSky Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of mobile data services to regional wireless carriers, today announced the signing of a multi-year contract to deliver Femtocell as a Service (FaaS) to Cellular One of East Central Illinois. ClearSky commenced its FaaS operation in mid-2012 with a successful customer trial.

The number one reason wireless carriers lose customers is poor coverage. Today’s wireless customers expect consistent, high-quality coverage in exchange for their loyalty. Macro cellular networks alone cannot fulfill this expectation, so carriers across the world are turning to small cells to deliver ubiquitous coverage and avoid losing valuable customers.

Cellular One chose ClearSky’s FaaS to cost-effectively fill coverage gaps in their own markets, thus enabling them to:

• Expand network capacity wherever needed.
• Improve coverage in residential, commercial and outdoor spaces.
• Reduce in-network roaming costs.
• Increase off-network roaming revenue.
• Extend the battery life of handsets.
• Decrease CapEx by outsourcing the Femtocell Gateway infrastructure.

“ClearSky’s FaaS meets our need to deliver high-quality voice and data coverage, and does so at a fraction of the cost of expanding our macro network and/or purchasing a Femtocell Gateway of our own,” said Cassy Carter, CEO of Cellular One of East Central Illinois. “One of our primary objectives is to reduce churn by improving in-home coverage for subscribers on the periphery of our macro cellular network, and residential FAPs [femtocell access points] are ideal for that purpose.”

“ClearSky’s singular focus has always been to place regional carriers on equal footing with top tier carriers. As cellular networks continue to evolve, certain integral network elements, such as a Femtocell Gateway, are expensive and cannot be cost justified by regional carriers, yet the demand for the technology remains high,” said Tony Tagliareni, ClearSky Chief Sales & Marketing Officer. “Outsourcing the FaaS solution to ClearSky allows Cellular One to redirect precious capital toward promoting their brand, differentiating themselves from competitors, and most importantly, growing their subscriber base.”

About ClearSky Technologies, Inc.
For more than a decade, ClearSky Technologies has been a leader in providing mobile data solutions for regional wireless carriers, enabling them to offer the same advanced technology as national carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. ClearSky’s powerful array of products and services includes LTE, femtocell, traffic and policy management, Multi-Generation SMS, MMS and mobile Internet gateway, along with P-SMS and carrier-branded content portals. Headquartered in Orlando, ClearSky currently provides mobile data services to more than 80 wireless operators serving 8 million subscribers across the Americas. For more information, visit www.csky.com.

About Cellular One of East Central Illinois
Cellular One of East Central Illinois is a family-owned and locally operated provider of cellular phone and wireless Internet services, and is one of the few independent cellular service companies in the country that has operated continuously under the same owners since first opening for business. The company has served the residents of Clark, Clay, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Jasper, Lawrence, Richland and Vermilion counties since 1991.

ClearSky Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of mobile data services to regional wireless carriers, today announced a multi-year contract extension with long-time customer MTA, along with an agreement to add ClearSky’s iCode® Common and Local Shortcode Services.

Shortcodes are part of a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon and are a competitive “must-have” in today’s wireless world. During the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, mobile giving via shortcodes accounted for 20 percent of relief funds (Source: Mobile Commercial Daily), as the public turned to wireless as a key donation channel to repair $20 billion in damages. Subscribers from nearly a dozen ClearSky carrier customers participated in the Sandy disaster relief effort by sending mobile donations to the American RedCross via the company’s iCode Common and Local Shortcode Services. MTA is the most recent carrier to choose ClearSky’s standard and premium rate shortcode platform, which enables their subscribers to participate in a wide range of national campaigns including disaster relief.

“We want to create an interactive mobile environment for our subscribers by allowing them to participate in the same popular campaigns as Tier 1 subscribers,” said Carolyn Hanson, MTA Director of Sales and Marketing. “Whether it’s accessing retail discounts from Bed, Bath and Beyond, requesting credit card or banking alerts, staying up-to-date on entertainment news from MTV, or receiving flight updates from airlines such as our local Alaska Airlines, ClearSky allows us to offer more than 3,000 shortcodes, and makes it easy with a single point of integration to multiple aggregators.”
“The opportunity to deliver high-profile shortcodes is often lost by carriers in rural areas, such as Alaska, because most aggregators will only engage with carriers that have a national footprint or millions of subscribers. To address this issue, ClearSky has connected with key aggregators that appreciate our significant customer base and large geographic footprint,” said Tony Tagliareni, ClearSky Chief Sales & Marketing Officer. “Not only do we offer thousands of high-profile shortcodes like Google and Twitter, but we also manage the aggregator relationships, handle the process of adding shortcodes, and work with carriers to provision and test the shortcodes to ensure they are working properly.”

About ClearSky Technologies, Inc.
For more than a decade, ClearSky Technologies has been a leader in providing mobile data solutions for regional wireless carriers, enabling them to offer the same advanced technology as national carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. ClearSky’s powerful array of products and services includes LTE, traffic and policy management, Multi-Generation SMS, MMS and mobile Internet gateway, along with P-SMS and carrier-branded content portals. Headquartered in Orlando, ClearSky currently provides mobile data services to more than 80 wireless operators serving 8 million subscribers across the Americas. For more information, visit www.csky.com.

About MTA
Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) is a member-owned cooperative founded in 1953 to bring telephone service to rural South-Central Alaska. Today, MTA delivers some of the most advanced communications products available in the marketplace, including Local, Long Distance, Wireless, Internet, Business, Directory and Digital TV services. The MTA service area covers over 10,000 square miles–south to Eagle River, north to Anderson, east to Glacier View, and west to Skwentna. MTA stores are located in Eagle River, Palmer, and Wasilla, Alaska. For more information, visit www.mtasolutions.com.

ClearSky Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of mobile data services to regional wireless carriers, today announced the signing of a multi-year agreement with MTPCS, LLC, d.b.a. Cellular One for Total Traffic Manager (TTM). Recognizing the value and importance of traffic control, MTPCS joins many other regional carriers that have selected ClearSky’s TTM to manage and monetize their data traffic.

Data-hungry, Internet-based mobile services dominate today’s smartphone-centric world; YouTube alone comprises 25 percent of all mobile traffic (Source: Wireless Week). Higher demand on mobile networks means more subscribers sharing limited spectrum, and the lack of comprehensive traffic management and policy enforcement can result in network congestion and customer support calls from disgruntled subscribers complaining about service degradation.

MTPCS is the latest regional carrier to choose ClearSky’s TTM to monitor and analyze data traffic as it flows through the carrier’s network. TTM provides real-time traffic visibility, and then generates actions based on a detailed analysis and a set of pre-configured rules or policies. By gaining insight into why and how traffic is impacting the performance of its network, MTPCS can define and enforce network policies, satisfy subscribers with fair allocation of resources, and ensure traffic flow continues unaffected–even if capacity limits are exceeded.

“ClearSky has worked with us to tailor its traffic management solution to fulfill all of our specific policy requirements. TTM enables us to reduce ‘wasted’ data without weakening the customer experience, identify top devices, sites, protocols and data users, and shape the user experience according to protocol (i.e., streaming video, streaming audio, P2P sharing),” said Michael Metcalf, EVP/CTO at MTPCS. “We also needed the flexibility to implement additional policies in the future, such as tethering detection, a customized social media package, and tiered data plans including “top off” policies and bill shock notification. Our objective is to use bandwidth more effectively, and TTM delivers the unique features and flexibility to help us reach that goal.”

“The deployment strategy behind ClearSky’s TTM is unlike that of most other solutions on the market. Rather than the traditional installation of a platform in the carrier’s network, charging a license fee, and moving on to the next sale, ClearSky works with its clients to configure, recommend and deploy specific policies,” said ClearSky Director of Product Management Lou Grilli. “Our exposure to the data traffic challenges faced daily by our 80 carrier customers uniquely qualifies us to add significant value to their traffic and policy management.”

About ClearSky

For more than a decade, ClearSky Technologies has been a leader in providing mobile data solutions for regional wireless carriers, enabling them to offer the same advanced technology as national carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. ClearSky’s powerful array of products and services includes LTE, traffic and policy management, Multi-Generation SMS, MMS and mobile Internet gateway, along with P-SMS and carrier-branded content portals. Headquartered in Orlando, ClearSky currently provides mobile data services to more than 80 wireless operators serving 8 million subscribers across the Americas. For more information, visit www.csky.com.

About MTPCS, LLC d.b.a. Cellular One

Formed in 2005, MTPCS, LLC has grown into one of the largest regional wireless carriers in the United States. Operating under the Cellular One brand, MTPCS serves customers in Montana, Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. MTPCS’s success comes from providing its customers with greater value and exceptional service in markets typically underserved by national carriers.  MTPCS’s service area covers a population exceeding 2 million, and the company employs over 400 people across the United States.  For more information, visit: http://www.cellonenation.com.

ClearSky Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of mobile data services to regional wireless carriers, today announced the signing of a multi-year agreement with Cellular One of Northeast Arizona for Total Traffic Manager (TTM).

In order to stay competitive with tier 1 players in a 4G world, rural wireless carriers must manage their high-speed data traffic and offer a variety of creative data plans. Industry heavyweight Verizon Wireless recognized the importance of offering custom choices to subscribers; their new “Share Everything” campaign allows customers to choose from a variety of tailored plans—from 1GB for light users to 10GB for bandwidth-hungry 4G users. Using ClearSky’s TTM service, Cellular One of Northeast Arizona can capitalize on revenue opportunities while matching the data plan strategies of tier 1 competitors.

ClearSky’s TTM actively monitors and analyzes data traffic as it flows through the carrier’s network, and then generates actions based on a detailed analysis and a set of pre-configured rules. Providing real-time visibility to the various types of data traffic running through its network, TTM will allow Cellular One to identify and create new services to increase data ARPU such as:

• Offering data plans that include a limited amount of access (e.g., 2GB for $20, then provide subscribers the ability to self-manage their data plans to purchase incremental data access).
• Providing bronze, silver and gold tiered pricing plans based on levels of throughput.
• Enforcing policy to prohibit non-authorized devices from accessing the carrier’s mobile data network.

“Today’s surge in data traffic will only benefit carriers who can manage and monetize the increased consumption,” said Lou Grilli, ClearSky director of product management. “ClearSky’s TTM service allows carriers to manage exponential growth in data traffic while increasing revenue from data plans.”

“By placing ClearSky’s TTM Enforcement Platform in our data stream, Cellular One can measure traffic and subscriber patterns, and perform real-time traffic and policy enforcement. The end result is the ability to identify and create new services to increase data ARPU, satisfy all subscribers including heavy users, and minimize costs of future expansion through ‘fair usage’ policies,” said Louise Finnegan, CEO of Cellular One. “We plan to give subscribers the option to “top-up” when threshold limits are reached by purchasing additional capacity. Additionally, we plan to offer tailored data plans that more closely meet our subscribers’ needs.”

About ClearSky
For more than a decade, ClearSky Technologies has been a leader in providing mobile data solutions for regional wireless carriers, enabling them to offer the same advanced technology as national carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. ClearSky’s powerful array of products and services includes LTE, traffic and policy management, Multi-Generation SMS, MMS and mobile Internet gateway, along with P-SMS and carrier-branded content portals. Headquartered in Orlando, ClearSky currently provides mobile data services to more than 80 wireless operators serving 8 million subscribers across the Americas. For more information, visit www.csky.com.

About CellularOne
Cellular One www.cellularoneonline.com is a leading provider of wireless communications service committed to providing the most reliable service to its customers in rural Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Headquartered in Show Low, Ariz., Cellular One operates a network of more than 159 cell sites, with additional sites in the works, and a total of 22 stores within its coverage area—providing nearly 200 jobs in the region.

Many of the communities Cellular One serves are rural and/or situated on Native American reservations. In fact, before Cellular One arrived, telephone penetration for most regional tribal communities was roughly 27%. In cooperation with the FCC, the U.S. government, and the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and White Mountain Apache Native American Tribal Councils, today Cellular One currently provides basic cellular telephone service to approximately 80% of these rural tribal areas.

For more information, visit www.cellularoneonline.com and www.facebook.com/CellularOneOnline

After supporting a successful carrier trial, ClearSky Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of mobile data services to regional wireless carriers, announces the signing of a multi-year contract with NEC Corporation of America (NEC) to offer Femtocell as a Service (FaaS) to regional wireless carriers.

According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, global mobile data traffic is predicted to increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015; Cisco calls this growth the “mobile data tsunami.” But as demand for mobile data services increases year over year, so does the need for additional wireless capacity and abundant coverage. Traditional macro cellular networks alone cannot fulfill this need. Informa Telecoms & Media predicts femtocells will become the “backbone” of wireless networks in the future, as they can offload much of the wireless demand onto existing wired connections.

“We are keen to enable operators of all sizes and technology interests to access the benefits of femtocells to the benefit of their customers. Femtocell as a Service offers an alternative approach to launching services for many carriers and we welcome ClearSky’s announcement,” said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Small Cell Forum. “Femtocells are a key component of next generation networks and a ubiquitous network society, and the availability of this technology as a hosted service puts femtocell deployment within reach for all rural operators.”

“We believe femtocells can be deployed by rural carriers to cost effectively address a number of operational challenges including reducing roaming costs by filling coverage gaps in their own markets, offloading data traffic from their core networks, and eliminating poor coverage within their subscribers’ residences,” said Tony Tagliareni, ClearSky Chief Sales & Marketing Officer. “NEC’s Femtocell Gateway and corresponding plug-and-play Residential, Enterprise and Outdoor Femtocell Access Points (FAPs) ideally address all of these challenges.”

“With more than 15 years of hosting network infrastructure along with a reach of 80 carrier clients, ClearSky was the obvious choice to work with us in offering FaaS as a hosted solution,” said Harumi Ikeda, Executive Vice President, NEC Corporation of America, Carrier Solutions. “Given the success of our market trial with ClearSky so far, our alignment has already been proven successful.”

About ClearSky Technologies, Inc.
For more than a decade, ClearSky Technologies has been a leader in providing mobile data solutions for regional wireless carriers, enabling them to offer the same advanced technology as national carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. ClearSky’s powerful array of products and services includes LTE, traffic and policy management, Multi-Generation SMS, MMS and mobile Internet gateway, along with P-SMS and carrier-branded content portals. Headquartered in Orlando, ClearSky currently provides mobile data services to more than 80 wireless operators serving 8 million subscribers across the Americas. For more information, visit www.csky.com.

About NEC Corporation of America
Headquartered in Irving, Texas, NEC Corporation of America is a leading provider of innovative IT, network, communications and biometrics products and solutions for service carriers, Fortune 1000 and SMB businesses across multiple vertical industries, including Healthcare, Government, Education and Hospitality. NEC Corporation of America delivers one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of technology solutions and professional services, including unified communications, wireless, voice and data, managed services, server and storage infrastructure, virtualized and carrier network systems, microwave radio communications and biometric security. NEC Corporation of America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, a global technology leader with a presence in over 44 countries and more than $37 billion in revenues. For more information, please visit www.necam.com.