At press conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, Nokia today introduced the Nokia Prepaid Tracker - a simple, innovative solution that lets prepaid subscribers effortlessly keep track of their prepaid balance and call expenses. After each call or transaction, details about subscribers' account balance is automatically sent and displayed on their easy-to-use Nokia phone menu. Nokia Prepaid Tracker frees prepaid subscribers from the inconvenience of having to contact the operator's customer center to check their balance.

Nokia Prepaid Tracker is the world's first end-to-end fully network-based solution to provide this functionality. It is provided to operators as a software implementation and is available now. Support for the solution is built into the newly launched Nokia 1110 and Nokia 1600 phones.

"The time is ripe for a solution like Nokia Prepaid Tracker, which brings clear benefits to both subscribers and operators," says Sanjay Bhasin, Director, New Growth Markets, Networks, Nokia. "Informa Telecoms & Media estimates that the world has just reached the significant milestone of one billion prepaid mobile subscribers - more than half of all mobile subscribers."

"The solution can improve the user experience of many of these prepaid subscribers by allowing them to see exactly how much their calls cost, which reduces the fear of unexpectedly running out of credit and even encourages subscribers to share their phones with friends - with the assurance that they can be correctly reimbursed for calls," adds Bhasin.

"For operators, Prepaid Tracker gives them a differentiating edge over the competition and reduces churn," continues Bhasin. "Nokia Prepaid Tracker also makes more efficient use of network resources when delivering the balance, call cost, and expiry date information to the phones. The communication between the network and the subscriber's phone happens in the background without the subscriber being aware of it."

Nokia Prepaid Tracker network software is implemented in an Intelligent Network platform, such as the Nokia mCreate Solution, to allow the supported phones, the Nokia 1110 and Nokia 1600, to display account information on the phone's main display. In addition to their current account balance, subscribers can also view information on the account's expiration date, the cost of the last call or SMS, and the amount of the last prepaid recharge.

Nokia mCreate Solution is an easy-to-use service creation tool that allows an operator to quickly develop and deploy compelling IN services tailored to different subscriber segments. Nokia Prepaid Tracker can also be implemented on other IN platforms.

Nokia Prepaid Tracker is the newest addition to Nokia Connect GSM solution. Nokia Connect GSM is a comprehensive portfolio of network features, products, services and service enablers for to assist operators in New Growth Markets in providing mobile services to new subscriber segments. Nokia Prepaid Tracker complements Nokia Connect eRefill, an SMS-based prepaid recharging solution that, as part of the Nokia Connect GSM Solution, further enhances the prepaid service that mobile operators can provide to their subscribers.