Contract Win

Eckoh Technologies PLC 13 December 2004 13 December 2004 Eckoh Awarded 3 Year Age Verification Contract by 02 Eckoh Technologies plc ("Eckoh"), Europe's leading speech application speech provider, has been awarded a 3 year contract to provide a user interface for age verification and parental control services from O2, a leading provider of mobile communications services. O2 are introducing age verification to ensure that commercial content services classified as 18 are only available to users who are old enough. Users will only be able to access these services if they have been successfully age verified. To verify their age, users will be able to dial an advanced speech recognition (ASR) service developed by Eckoh and hosted on their market leading call processing platform. The system will initially identify the caller by their mobile number and will use ASR to collect the details required from the caller to perform age verification to O2's robust standard. On successful verification, the service will update the profile held by O2 to enable them to access content and services classified as 18. The system will also provide a simple way for users to configure O2's new parental control service. Parental control is designed to help parents ensure the safety of their children by restricting access to Internet sites available through mobiles. This will be the first part of the solution provided by Eckoh to be delivered and will launch in December 2004. Nik Philpot, Eckoh's Chief Operating Officer said: "It is very gratifying to have been awarded this contract by O2 as we recognise the sensitivity of the project and the quality of performance that is required. As O2's long term supplier we are looking forward to developing a strong relationship with them and we hope to extend the services we deliver beyond the initial offering. 2004 has been a year in which Eckoh have launched several high profile and long term contracts utilising speech recognition and we believe that the benefits of the technology are becoming self-evident to clients and users alike." Jonny Shipp, Head of Content Standards at O2, commented: "With the increasing capability of phones we anticipate growing demand for a wide range of commercial content. It is important for us to be able to allow our customers to make informed decisions about the legal content they access, and at the same time protect the vulnerable from inappropriate content. The introduction of the age verification service is one of the core elements of our programme to restrict children's access to content. We need a service provider who has the necessary expertise and technical infrastructure to deliver an extremely robust solution together with experience of operating high volume speech recognition applications." For further enquiries, please contact Eckoh Technologies plc Tel: 08701 100 700 Martin Turner, Chief Executive Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer Jim Hennigan, Managing Director, Speech Solutions Buchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000 Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia Notes to Editors About Eckoh Technologies: Eckoh Technologies plc designs, builds, hosts and manages Speech Solutions for large corporations and organisations using ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technologies. It is a leading UK service provider and infrastructure owner/operator, and intends to exploit the anticipated growth in demand for Speech Solutions across Europe. In January 2003, Eckoh signed a landmark deal to create an exclusive speech alliance with BT to provide hosted speech recognition solutions to their corporate client base over the next 2 years. This contract was then subsequently extended until December 2006. In December 2003, BT and Eckoh announced significant contracts to the value of £6m with UGC Cinemas, TD Waterhouse, RNIB and Wire-E. In June 2003 Eckoh enlarged its call processing infrastructure to 7,000 lines (capable of handling 500,000 calls an hour) by installing another platform into a BT hosting facility. This created the largest speech enabled call processing platform in Europe. In addition to those above, Eckoh has contracts to supply hosted Speech Solutions to clients including ATOC, Barclays, Virgin Mobile, William Hill, Wyevale Garden Centres and Vue. Eckoh also operates the following businesses: * IVR - following the acquisition of Intelliplus Group plc in Sept 2003, Eckoh is one of the largest providers of managed IVR and SMS services in the UK to media clients including the BBC, ITV, Trinity Mirror, Channel 4, Endemol, Celador, EMAP and Cartoon Network. * Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Freecom" brands, Eckoh supplies fixed line and mobile telephony services, broadband and data services to SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Following the acquisition of Intelliplus Network Services now has an SME customer base of over 13,000. In the year to 31 March 2004 Eckoh Technologies plc generated a turnover of £62.5 million and had a cash balance of £10.2m. Further information can be found at www.eckoh.com. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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