Provision and Support of USSD Mobile News Application

Overview

Innovura partnered with Shankly Technologies to develop and deploy a religious USSD application for Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, the country’s largest telecommunications provider. This mobile value-added service (VAS) aimed to offer spiritual content through an interactive USSD menu while integrating seamless billing solutions via Econet’s SDP airtime/credit system and Ecocash wallet. The project ensured compliance with POTRAZ regulations and provided robust subscriber management tools.

Company: Econet Wireless Zimbabwe.
Industry: Telecommunications & Value-Added Services.
Services: IT Consulting, Cloud Services, Software Development, Cyber Security & Compliance.
Location: Harare, Zimbabwe.

Challenge

1. Complex USSD Menu Requirements: Needed multiple levels of navigation with diverse content providers, content categories such as main and breaking news, and activation and deactivation options.
2. Billing System Integration: Required compatibility with Econet’s SDP airtime billing and Ecocash wallet for daily, weekly, and monthly subscription plans.
3. Regulatory Compliance: Adhered to POTRAZ guidelines for user consent, deactivation processes, and transparent billing practices.
4. Technical Deployment Challenges: Ensured secure server setup and reliable data storage for application snapshots and backups.

Solution

Innovura delivered a comprehensive solution addressing all requirements:

1. Interactive USSD Menu: Developed a multi-level USSD interface allowing users to select from multiple news content providers such as The Daily News, The Financial Gazette and The Herald. It also includes two news content categories, main and breaking news.
2. Content Scheduling: Ability to schedule content to be delivered at a specified date and time.
3. Billing Integration: Implemented a flexible billing system supporting three subscription plans—daily, weekly, and monthly—via Econet’s SDP airtime/credit billing and Ecocash wallet integration.
4. Multiple currency Billing: Multiple currency options.
5. Subscriber Management Portal: Admin dashboard for support agents to deactivate and view subscriber’s history and add internal test users.
6. Deactivation: option for subscribers to deactivate their subscription from the USSD menu ensuring full compliance with POTRAZ regulations.
7. Secure Deployment: Set up a secure AWS infrastructure featuring a VPN tunnel, EC2 instances, Amazon VPC, and Simple Storage Service (S3) for app snapshot backups. Installed Ubuntu OS, configured Java dependencies, and deployed a MySQL database for efficient data management.
8. Training & Support: Trained Econet support agents on using the subscriber management portal and ongoing technical support for maintenance, updates, and enhancements of the USSD application and the admin portals.

Results

1. Successful Deployment: The mobile news ussd application was launched successfully, providing valuable news content to Econet subscribers across Zimbabwe.
2. Content provider partners: The Daily News, The Financial Gazette and The Herald.
3. Revenue Generation: Generated consistent revenue streams for Econet and content providers through subscription-based billing models.
4. High User Adoption: Subscribers embraced the service, appreciating its ease of use, diverse content offerings, and transparent billing practices.
5. Compliance Assurance: Fully met POTRAZ regulatory requirements, ensuring trust and satisfaction among users.

Technologies

1. Cloud Infrastructure: AWS EC2, VPN, S3 Storage, Multi-AZ Deployment.
2. Language: Java, HTML, JS and CSS.
3. Payment Gateway: EcoCash and SDP API integration.
4. Telecom Protocols: SMPP for SMS, Asterisk for IVR.
5. Monitoring: Zoho analytics for real-time performance tracking dashboards.