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This is a dated announcement. The material in this announcement could be superceded by more current announcements.

ECtel Ltd. Leverages SPSS Inc. Data Mining Solution for Real-time Fraud Detection

Global Provider of Monitoring Solutions and Revenue Assurance Applications Reduces Fraud for More Than 150 Telecom Companies With Clementine®

CHICAGO, 07/08/03

SPSS Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSS), a global provider of predictive analytics technology and services, announced that ECtel Ltd. (Nasdaq: ECTX) has integrated SPSS Inc.'s Clementine® data mining workbench into FraudView™, its fraud-detection application. ECtel, a global provider of monitoring solutions and revenue assurance applications for wireless, wireline and next generation networks, has incorporated Clementine to help deliver real-time fraud detection solutions to more than 150 telecommunications companies around the world. Clementine, SPSS Inc.'s industry-leading data mining solution, enables organizations to realize a return on their data investments by quickly turning volumes of data into useful information.

The worldwide telecommunications industry loses more than $12 billion dollars in revenue each year due to fraud, according to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), one of the leading international organizations for communications fraud control education and information. With the powerful combination of Clementine and FraudView, ECtel's real-time fraud management system, ECtel customers can instantaneously detect and stop telecommunications fraud - resulting in significant monetary savings. To date, more than 150 blue-chip telecom service providers worldwide, including national carriers in Germany, China and the United States, have turned to ECtel's FraudView to successfully inhibit fraud.

With Clementine operating as its real-time fraud detection engine, FraudView offers the telecommunications industry a proven fraud management solution. FraudView gathers call information in real-time and compares the data with fraudulent scenarios produced by its MineView component. MineView uses Clementine to evaluate a sample of an ECtel customer's call data records, and then generates the scenario that would most accurately predict fraud. If MineView flags the subscriber as fraudulent, an alert is automatically generated and filed into a case profile for the telecom investigator to examine.

"Selling a data mining product to a telecom provider has been traditionally difficult because they don't have data mining experts on staff who can work with conventional data mining tools," said Eric Kaplan, FraudView group manager at ECtel Ltd. "By functioning autonomously, FraudView with Clementine enables people without data mining expertise to operate a data mining workbench. The Clementine solution is truly data mining for the people."

For each subscriber, ECtel's MineView calculates a suspicion score - the probability that a fraudulent subscriber is using a suspect number - based on synchronized data collection. Whenever this score exceeds the preset threshold, MineView sends an alert notifying the investigator of a suspicious subscriber, eliminating the threat of fraud at the earliest possible moment. This instantaneous data collection is a significant advantage over other data mining systems, which compare data against the model at two-hour intervals.

"ECtel's FraudView is an ideal example of how technology vendors are enhancing and expanding existing product lines by incorporating our predictive analytics solutions," said Peter Caron, director of Product Management at SPSS Inc. "In addition to addressing a variety of business issues - from fraud detection to customer retention - in the telecommunications industry, SPSS is actively working with financial services, retail, healthcare, government and higher education customers to help them strategically leverage predictive analytics in order to increase their organization's ROI."

About ECtel Ltd.

As a leading provider of monitoring solutions for converged telecommunications networks, ECtel develops and markets revenue assurance applications for telecommunications service providers. ECtel's state-of-the-art technologies and products enable:

ECtel's global customer base of more than 180 service providers and law enforcement agencies includes many of the world's leading blue-chip telecom service providers: H3G (Hutchison), US Sprint, Deutsche Telecom, British Telecom, MCI Worldcom, the Telefonica Group, Cable & Wireless, Qwest Communications, Embratel, Korea Telecom, China Telecom, Global Crossing and Cellcom, to name a few. ECtel's customers benefit from the Company's customer service team experts that are based in the United States, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Israel.

As part of its commitment to contribute to the worldwide telecommunications industry's future standards, ECtel is an active member of the GSM Association, and the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR), a collaborative team of leading integrators, integrated communications providers and billing, mediation and equipment vendors. ECtel chairs one of IPDR's committees and is also active in other influential organizations, including FIINA, QSDG, CFCA and ITU.

ECtel is a public company traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol ECTX.

About SPSS Inc.

SPSS Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSS) headquartered in Chicago, IL, USA, is a multinational computer software company providing technology that transforms data into insight through the use of predictive analytics and other data mining techniques. The company's solutions and products enable organizations to manage the future by learning from the past, understanding the present, as well as predicting potential problems and opportunities. For more information, visit www.spss.com.