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Because predictive dialers are able to quickly make a large amount of outbound calls, these solutions have gained significant popularity among outbound call centers. And as the use of predictive dialers has continued to increase among marketers, the FCC (News - Alert) has set new rules to restrict the use of marketing calls that leverage this robust technology.

Radius Solutions powers a solution called Radius Cell Manager to help companies much more easily comply with FCC’s new Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and its prohibition against using automatic telephone dialing systems and predictive dialers to call cell phone numbers in any mode.

Building on the success of this solution, Radius Solutions (News - Alert) acquired Astra Business Services, which became effective January 1, 2012. Following this transaction, Astra has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Radius.

Radius provides a complete suite of compliant contact solutions including compliance consulting, skills-based routing, interactive messaging, call recording, and Web services integration. The acquisition is expected to strengthen the company’s focus in these compliance solutions.

Prior to the acquisition, Astra had been a preferred vendor to Radius. Since developing and beta testing Radius Cell Manager, Astra has almost doubled its number of employees, solely driven by client demands for Radius Cell Manager. The company now employs more than 300 full-time equivalents in Gurgaon and Dehradun. Astra’s headcount is expected to triple this year, according to official estimates.

Radius Cell Manager, according to company officials, delivers four times as many dials to cell phone numbers for an 89 percent reduction in cost compared to other forms of manual dialing campaigns — and does so in a manner that old predictive dialer-based technologies cannot match.

“This acquisition represents a logical conclusion to the relationship we’ve developed with Astra,” said Radius President Mark Love, in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to meet our clients’ demands for solutions in strict compliance with the letter of the law.”