[London, ENGLAND] Convergys Corporation, which supplies
outsourced billing and customer care services, has
announced a three-year agreement to provide COLT Telecom
Group in Europe with a digital subscriber line (DSL)
management solution.
The Convergys product will allow COLT customers to
read about COLT’s DSL offerings, pre-qualify for service,
place the order, and check to see how the order is being
progressed — all via the Web.
COLT operates 25 metropolitan-area networks in ten countries
across Europe and is currently building new networks in
Birmingham and Dublin. By the end of 2001 it expects to
have between 30 and 32 networks in commercial city centers
fully operational.
One of the outstanding success stories of the communications
industry in the U.K., COLT Telecom has this year had a
setback in seeing it shares fall from their alltime
high in December 1999. As a result, “The Sunday Times” of
November 5, calculated that COLT Chairman Paul Chisholm
is Britain’s most overpaid boss — by a breathtaking
US $200 million in salary and share option gains.
COLT will now introduce DSL in Germany and The Netherlands,
closely followed by a rollout in seven more countries
during 2001.
“The combination of our innovative DSL products with
Convergys’ world-class DSL customer care capabilities will
continue to drive our growth trend in the years ahead,”
said Peter Manning, COLT’s chief operating officer.
Monica Mehan, president of Convergys Europe, said the
capability to provide high-speed broadband IP-access over
a standard copper line is going to drive a phenomenal growth
market for DSL products across Europe and the rest of
the world.
“This opportunity with COLT to support one of the industry’s
most aggressive and recognized pioneers in this area with our DSL
management solution places Convergys at the forefront of this
exciting new market opportunity in Europe,” said Mehan.
Convergys now has 46 customer contact centers around the
world handling over a million transactions a day.
