Telecom Billing

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Thursday, June 2, 2011 1 IBM Confidential, Made by Navin P Chanchal Telecom Billing

Transcript of Telecom Billing

Page 1: Telecom Billing

Thursday, June 2, 2011 1 IBM Confidential, Made by Navin P Chanchal

Telecom Billing

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Thursday, June 2, 2011 2 IBM Confidential, Made by Navin P Chanchal

Content

● OSS/BSS● Overview of CRM, OM/OF, Billing,

Mediation,Provisioning, Payments, Collections, Inventory

● Overview of Interconnect● Overview of Roaming Process Flow

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BSS/OSS

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BSS

● BSS stands for Business Support Systems.● Software applications that support customer-

facing activities. Billing, order management, customer relationship management, call center automation, are all BSS applications.

● focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information.

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OSS● OSS is either Operational Support System

or Operations Support System.● Software (occasionally hardware)

applications that support back-office activities which operate a telco’s network, provision and maintain customer services.

● built around product, service, and resource inventories.

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Billing Introduction● Collecting, aggregating, applying the required charges

and generating the invoices to the customers● Also receiving and reporting the Payments● Timely Billing● Accuracy

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Overview● CRM, OMOF● Provisioning, ● Network Inventory● Mediation● Guiding & Rating, taxes● Discount, Adjustments, billing● Reporting, DWH, FMS, Supply

Chain, ● Payments, Collections

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Customer classifications

● Pre-paid, Post Paid● Individual, Hierarchical● Class based like VIP, General, ● Segmented like Police, Military etc● Mobile, Fixed Line ● Retail, wholesale like MVNO/Re-sellers,

Interconnect Operators, Roaming Partners

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Product

● Real objects (a mobile phone, for example).● Services (a call waiting service on a

telephone system, for example).● More abstract concepts (a service level

agreement, for example)● bundle more than one product into a single

group as a Package

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Tariff/Rate/Price Plan

● Product Initiation Charges● Product Periodic Charges, Product

Termination Charges, Product Suspension Charges ,Product Re-activation Charges,

● Product Usage Charges e.g. Distance based, Volume based, duration based, peak hour rates

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CRM Billing Provisioning

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CRM/OMOF BILLING● CRM ( Customer Relationship Management) /OMOF (Order

Management and Order Fulfillment ) system contacts with the billing system and billing system contacts with provisioning system to provision the services and network inventory system as well to assign phone numbers or IP addresses etc.

● Second possibility could be that CRM/OMOF system itself contacts with provisioning system to provision the services and network inventory system as well to assign phone numbers or IP addresses etc

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CRM● Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for

products.,

● Create and manage customer profiles, Offering Packages/Products

● Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, trouble tickets, requests, and responses.

● Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related

● updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits.

● customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, pro-active campaigns, and retention/loyalty.

● Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.

● Validate customer identity ( Customer Verification)

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OM OF● Issuing new customer orders, modifying

open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders;

● Workflow Orchestration, tracking order starting from its creation till its completion

● Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled;

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OM OF● Verifying whether specific non-standard

offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable;

● Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process;

● Breaks Order into requests for other NEs● Request will have set of tasks for a NE● Assigning and tracking customer

provisioning activities;

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Provisioning

● takes commands either from the Billing System or CRM/OMOF System to activate, de-activate and suspend the services

● contacts with core network system to activate, de-activate or suspend the services

● sends the response back to either the Billing System or the CRM/OMOF system

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Network Inventory

● maintains all the network identifiers like phone numbers, MSISDN, IP addresses, email addresses etc

● maintain the life cycle of network identifiers which starts with available and then flows through different stages like activation, suspend, terminate, quarantine, and again available.

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Mediation Billing Flow

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Mediation● Collecting CDR files from Network Elements● Validating CDR files e.g. duplicate files,

missing File sequence number● Decode CDRs based on Record Layout of

Network Element● Validate CDRs e.g missing data in CDRs● Aggregate CDRs based on Call ID, Partial

Record indicator & Counters.● Encode & distribute CDRs for different

system like billing, FMS, Interconnect, DWH

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Guiding & Rating● CDRs from the Mediation System or other service providers

or roaming partners in case of roaming usage● Validating the CDRs, eliminate any duplicate records. ● determine the customer account -- Guiding. ● calculate the cost/price of the event as per the rate.● apply rating time discounts.● To store the rated event in the database for a billing purpose

or send it to the external system for billing.

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Billing Engine generate following :● Usage Charges from Rated CDRs in Billing database.● All type of charges ( initiation, installation, periodic,

suspension, termination etc.) product and services.● If there is any refund or any other charges applicable.● Total outstanding from previous bills and LPC.● Total payments made by the customer in the given month.● Total adjustment in favor of or against the customer.● Total discount given to the customer.● Total taxes on usage, NRC/one time and rental/RC charges.● Billing configuration parameter required to run the Billing

Engine, for example payment due date etc.

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BILL Formatting/Invoicing

● Accepts Data from Billing in ASCII, XML or any other file format

● Generates bill in different type of files like PS, PDF, AFP, XML

● Can have different format based on customer profile

● Can support regional language, currency, marketing messages

● Email bill, Duplicate bill, SMS-bill, Bill view

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Payments

● Payment methods like Cheque, Cash, Credit Card, Direct Debit etc

● Through Bulk Utility from Billing for Cash, Cheque

● Bank interface with API or text file with billing system for payment transfers.

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Collection

● Soft Collection Actions – Sending emails, SMS reminders and requests, Calling the customer

● Hard Collection Actions - barring the services, or disconnecting the services

● If all fails then the service provider may write-off the account and marks the due amount as bad debt or may hand over (sell off) the account to a collection agency.

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Interconnect

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Interconnect ● Interconnect is the process of handling calls

for other service providers. e.g.● Operator A's customer makes national call to Operator B's

customer. In this case operator A will pay to B.● Operator A's customer makes international call through

Operator B, because operator A does not have direct agreement with any international operator. In this case operator A will pay to operator B and operator B will take care of setteling down international operator.

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Interconnect CDRs, Reports

● Every month interconnect partners exchange their CDRs, Reports for reconciliation purpose since error are possible due to different tariff set-up, missing CDR.

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Interconnect Billing

● Bilateral or Unilateral Agreement● Settlement Process– Done for a service for

a period like Monthly, Bi-Monthly, Can be Automated or on demand.

● The Outgoing (Expense to Interconnect Owner) and Incoming (Revenue to Interconnect Owner) traffic

● Netting is done by multiple settlement period for the multiple services.

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Roaming

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Roaming Partners● National or International Roaming.● TAP3 (Transfer Account Procedure 3)

protocol/Standard used to transfer the CDRs data and settlement for the services.

● Returned Accounts Procedure (RAP) files are rejected files/event from TAP files by Operator due to errors

● Roaming Partner will rate the calls and then charge the subscribers home network for all the calls within a file.

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Roaming Process Flow● Create TAP3 standard file send to the Clearhouse● Clearhouse is body who interface between roaming partners

to help them to exchange their CDRs, setting up roaming agreements and resolving any dispute.

● Clearhouse Submit the Data to the Operator it belongs.● Operator process the TAP files , send back the RAP files to

Clearhouse to submit it to Roaming Partner ● Operator Invoices its customer for Roaming Usages.

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Some Billing System Vendors

system website

Convergys IRB http://www.convergys.com

Amdocs Ensemble http://www.amdocs.com

Ascade http://www.ascade.com/Kenan FX http://www.comverse.com/

Single View http://www.intecbilling.com

Ericsson IN http://www.ericsson.com

Oracle BRM http://www.oracle.com

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THANKING YOU