Comviva is extending service uptake in Africa with its new offering WebAxn, a cloud-based or network-based mobile application platform that enables service providers to develop and deploy applications and services on mass market handsets.

WebAxn avoids the need for repeat porting and testing, helping lower the cost and time involved in going to market for operators and content providers. WebAxn also enables development and deployment of multimodal applications, enabling access over GPRS, SMS and USSD. This is important in growth markets, where users need to access applications over different bearers.

WebAxn is able to address two critical operator pain points:

A Self-Care Application: WebAxn creates a direct operator-branded channel of communication with the user, empowering operators to enhance users’ self-care experience and promote new offerings directly and more effectively. With the WebAxn client, users can manage their own account directly and subscribe/unsubscribe to a range of content and services from within the application, thus reducing the operator’s overall customer care cost.

A Web Access Tool: WebAxn brings various web applications and services like Facebook, Twitter, Vuclip (for video clips) and a wealth of news, sports and customer-relevant content to mass devices in one click. It allows users to directly access their favorite mobile internet applications and content via a single WebAxn client application, without going through carrier decks, typing in URLs or launching a browser.

Another offering for mobile operators in Africa is Aggregated Voice and Video Applications Network (AVAN), which enables operators to deliver a highly diverse portfolio of voice and video content and applications in a simple, standard way. AVAN achieves this by enabling the wider application developer community to rapidly develop and deploy applications on the platform – and providing a uniform access interface for the end user.