Telenor Takes WAC to the Market in a New Pilot

Telenor takes WAC to the market in a new pilot

In partnership with Ericsson and Opera Software, Telenor demos its WAC solution during Mobile World Congress. This is the first showcase of Telenor's pilot project for the Serbian market.

Today at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) will officially announce its commercial launch. Telenor has been an active member of WAC since its inception one year ago, and the company is currently showcasing its first WAC pilot project at MWC.

Ericsson and Telenor demo WAC solution at MWC

Telenor has partnered with Ericsson and Opera Software to run its first WAC pilot in Serbia. Ericsson will host a pod within the WAC stand at Mobile World Congress, where visitors will find a demo of the solution for Telenor Serbia. Ericsson will also demonstrate the pilot on their stand in Hall 6. "The pilot project in Serbia shows our commitment to WAC and our need to learn more about working with WAC, the developers and partners such as Ericsson," said Rune Slinning, Telenor's Go WAC project leader. "However this pilot in Serbia is not limited to only WAC; this app store will also offer Android, Symbian and Java content to participants in the pilot."

Pilot project invites 10,000 participants in Serbia

The pilot project in Serbia will officially launch following the Mobile World Congress. Invitations will be sent to approximately 10,000 potential participants in Serbia. "We are very glad that Serbia will be the first among the Telenor Group to launch a WAC-enabled store, showing our commitment to WAC initiative. We believe that we will achieve positive results with this pilot and that this example will serve as a recommendation for all Telenor units to support this initiative," said Petar Babic, Infotainment Services Manager, Telenor Serbia. Ericsson will provide the content management solution for Telenor Serbia's pilot, while Opera will deliver the interface for the storefront on the mobile.Â As this is a pilot project, the applications made available for Serbian customers will be free of charge. "Developers will make the applications and submit them to WAC's application repository. Then Telenor Serbia's app store will retrieve the apps from WAC that we want to make available to customers through the storefront client," explained Hilde Lovett, Go WAC project member, Telenor Group. "Developers will be able to reach an entirely new pool of users, which is an attractive value proposition for them."

WAC for all of Telenor Group

Following the completion of the pilot in Serbia, Telenor will prepare for a wide scale launch of WAC. Telenor is aiming for the end of 2011/early 2012 for a market-by-market release. "We want to launch at a time when more customers can use the service, when more WAC-enabled devices are available, and the developer and operator communities are much more extensive," said Slinning. "We will use the experience from the pilot in Serbia to support BUs rolling out WAC in their market. We are of course aiming for a Group solution, in which we can use Telenor's scale to our advantage."

Telenor Group is one of the world's major mobile operators. We keep our customers connected in our markets across Scandinavia and Asia. Our more than 30,000 employees are committed to responsible business conduct and being our customers' favourite partner in digital life. Connecting the world has been Telenor's domain for more than 160 years, and we are driven by a singular vision: to empower societies.