Vodafone Spain uses OpenCloud Rhino for all pre and post-paid multimedia messaging services. The system works as a ‘Virtual MMSC’, providing local service control while centralised Vodafone Group hardware secures cost savings for the Group.

Vodafone Spain wanted to find a way to separate the messaging payload delivery from the service layer. This approach means Vodafone Spain is able to respond to local market demands and deliver customised services to the Spanish market and to deliver economies of scale by sharing Vodafone Group infrastructure.

The new two-layer messaging architecture allows Vodafone Spain to implement regional service variants and apply local promotional charging, marketing campaigns, routing rules, number translation etc. before messages are routed to Vodafone Group’s two centralised MMS-Cs in Italy and Germany for store & forward delivery.

With the mobile industry still seeing consolidation trends, and the continued requirement to drive down operational costs, keeping multiple hardware sites to support key services is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Moving the control logic for these services into a virtual environment is an appealing prospect for operators, enabling them to make cost savings without losing their ability to respond quickly to market requirements and maximise the potential for new business models such as mobile advertising.

The Rhino-based MSCL platform went live in the autumn of 2007 and handles many millions of MMSs per week.