AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc., a provider of telecom network and software solutions in China, recently announced that it has signed a contract with Liaoning Mobile, a China Mobile subsidiary, to construct a customer identification and billing center for the carrier's IP/data business.

Under a separate contract, AsiaInfo will also help the carrier to build a disaster redundancy system for its BOSS network.

Currently China Mobile's IP backbone network has only one national customer identification and billing center, which handles the needs of all of its data services nationwide. It became clear to the carrier, however, that the lack of such facilities with its provincial subsidiaries was hindering their ability to further develop data services. As such, Liaoning Mobile contracted AsiaInfo to build its own customer identification and billing center for IP/data services, as one of the key components of its Business Operation Support System (BOSS) network. Under the contract, AsiaInfo will deploy multiple software solutions, including the solution specially designed for customer identification in Internet and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services connection, AIRadius, as well as AsiaInfo's Online Billing Solution (AIOBS) and Convergent Billing Solution (AICBS). Upon completion, the center will be able to provide customer identification, order management and billing support to fulfill all the needs of Liaoning Mobile's data services. The center will be fully integrated with the carrier's current BOSS network and will provide around-the-clock customer service support.

Under a separate contract, AsiaInfo will deploy its Disaster Redundancy Management software solution (AIDRM) at the carrier's BOSS network and build a back-up data center to provide data back-up and recovery support in the event of any potential disaster. Some of the key functions of the main operation center may also be switched to the back-up center, in case of a major malfuncti oning, to maintain a seamless network operation.