BARCELONA, Mobile World Congress, 16 February 2009 – NeuStar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) today announced that it has worked with Telecom Italia to launch TIM I'M, a new service that enables Telecom Italia’s 35.3 million customers to communicate in more innovative and efficient ways through a presence-enabled communications contact list. NeuStar delivers mobile IM services to all major operators in Italy: Vodafone Italy, 3 Italy, WIND and Telecom Italia.

The TIM I’M service is a mobile phone application that provides detailed presence information about friends and contacts. Users can see which of their contacts are available and how they would like to communicate – be it via Instant Messaging, SMS, MMS or voice – all from one integrated application on the phone. Users can choose who to communicate with, and just as importantly, how to communicate with them.

TIM’s I’M service also seamlessly integrates the use of Windows Live Messenger and Alice Messenger into the application. I’M enables users of these mobile IM services to communicate with friends and IM buddies on different mobile IM services from one central point on the phone.

Telecom Italia worked closely with NeuStar to create the application, which builds on Telecom Italia’s successes with mobile instant messaging to date.  The I’M application is one of the most successful dedicated presence-enabled communications services commercially available in the world. 

“NeuStar believes in the power of presence as an enabler of context-based communications,” added Guenter Krauss, general manager of NeuStar NGM. “Forward-thinking operators like TIM know that their customers have more choices than ever. By launching the I’M application, Telecom Italia and NeuStar have worked together to offer an unrivalled communications experience to the user that not only supports the GSMA RCS initiative, but also provides the next generation user experience. I congratulate Telecom Italia on their pioneering approach, and look forward to continued success with them.”

The I’M service is initially compliant with 20 handsets (Nokia’s 6210, E51, E61, E65, E66, E71, E90, N73, N78, N79, N81, N95, N96, N73, N78, and N95; Samsung’s i450, i550, and L870; and LG’s KT615), and will soon be available on a wide range of Telecom Italia’s other most popular phones.