ntl Deploys Advanced Openwave Spam and Virus Protection

Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV - News), the leading provider of open software products and services for the communications industry, today announced that ntl, the UK's leading provider of consumer broadband internet services, has deployed successfully the Openwave® Edge Gx Anti-Abuse solution. This will provide ntl's retail and wholesale Internet customers with significantly increased protection from spam, viruses and other malicious messaging attacks.


With spam accounting for more than 50 per cent of message traffic globally, messaging 'abuse' of all kinds is an important and growing issue for service providers, with a significant impact on customer service, system support and messaging infrastructure costs.

The ability to block abusive messages before they enter the network lies at the heart of Openwave's Edge Gx Anti-Abuse solution. Designed specifically to address the needs of service providers, it prevents spammer traffic or harmful viruses from infiltrating carrier networks, as well as protecting outbound traffic at risk from zombies and trojans.

The deployment of Edge Gx Anti-Abuse with tightly integrated network edge anti-virus filtering from McAfee marks the successful completion of stage one in ntl's plan to enhance the overall customer experience. Some twenty million messages have been stopped from entering the ntl network per day.

The next stage will be to implement Brightmail anti-spam filtering technology, also tightly integrated with Openwave Edge Gx, to further enhance customer protection. Openwave's three-tier combination of intelligent network edge traffic controls, filtering technologies and end-user controls enables service providers to dramatically simplify the overall management and total cost of messaging and anti-abuse systems.

"ntl is working hard to provide the highest possible levels of protection to our customers from spam and viruses," said Bill Goodland, Director of Internet at ntl. "We have a significant programme in place to enhance the service we offer our internet customers and the partnership with Openwave is integral to this effort. The implementation of Edge Gx Anti-Abuse is a good start, preventing some 20 million messages from entering our network each day. But it's only the beginning. We intend to introduce additional levels of customer protection and support over the coming months."

"The ISP community is coming under increasing attack from unsolicited messages and this needs to be controlled," said Paolo Pescatore, senior research analyst, at IDC. "Service providers need to be more aggressive when it comes to blocking spam. Without the necessary defences in place, revenues and brand loyalty will continue to be at risk as subscribers switch between providers."

"The anti-abuse controls deployed by ntl are part of Openwave's complete solution that delivers the intelligent, proactive response that service providers need to combat ever more sophisticated forms of messaging abuse," said Rich Wong, general manager of messaging solutions at Openwave. "ntl is taking action to minimise messaging abuse and is leading the industry with a structured and comprehensive approach to protecting and enhancing the end-user experience of its services. We hope that our anti-abuse work will lead to an even closer strategic relationship between the two companies to deliver the best customer experience of messaging services available in the market."

About ntl

* ntl Incorporated (Nasdaq: NTLI - News) offers a wide range of communications and entertainment services to residential and business customers throughout the UK and Ireland.

* ntl is the UK's largest cable company and broadband supplier with 3 million residential customers, including over one million broadband customers.

* ntl's fibre-optic broadband network can service 7.9 million homes in the UK.

* Information on ntl and its products can be obtained at www.ntl.com

About Openwave

Openwave Systems Inc. is the leading independent provider of open software products and services for the communications industry. Openwave's breadth of products, including mobile phone software, multimedia messaging software (MMS), email, location and mobile gateways, along with its worldwide expertise enable its customers to deliver innovative and differentiated data services. Openwave is a global company headquartered in Redwood City, California. For more information please visit www.openwave.com.

NOTE: Openwave and the Openwave logo are trademarks of Openwave Systems Inc. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

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Source: Openwave Systems Inc.