VanillaPlus Magazine - August-Sept 2011

TALKINGHEADSCSPs must move beyondfighting known revenuerisks to attacking theunknowns of their operations,says cVidya CEO

REVENUEMANAGEMENTScattered data masksrevenue potential

CUSTOMEREXPERIENCEHappy customersreplace green lightsas the KPI

UNIFIED APMTime to tidy upthe applicationperformancemanagementtoolbox

D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011

V O L U M E 1 3 I S S U E 4

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20-PAGE

BILLING

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SUPPLEMENT INSIDE

Comptel makes 12m in two years from Axiom Systems acquisition• The NEPs are coming, should we worry? • Vodafone Iceland,Tunisiana and Turkcell make vendor selections • Dates for your Diary

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ISSN 1745-1736

CLOCKING OFF!A watchdog withmore bark thanbite, insideTalkTalk's £3mOfcomfine

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IN THIS ISSUE

3VANILLAPLUS AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011

Alon Aginsky,cVidya Networks

TALKINGHEADS

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C O N T E N T S

EDITOR’S COMMENT 4The NEPs are coming, should we worry?

NEWS 5Company, Market, Product and Contract News plus the People News column

CONTRACT HOT LIST 12Major contracts awarded globally and the latest Contract News

TALKING HEADS 13cVidya’s Alon Aginsky shares his view of the new breed of revenue assurancechallenges facing operators. They must move from simply addressing knownrevenue risks to attacking the unknowns of their operations, he says.

REVENUE MANAGEMENT 16Jonny Evans explains how business insight helps CSPs deploy theirresources effectively.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT 19Operator focus is moving away from rows of green lights to enabling richexperiences, says Mark Dye.

EXPERT OPINION: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE 21Neil Coleman advocates new approaches to close the gap between whatnetworks report and what customers tell them.

UNIFIED APPLICATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 22Nick Booth says there are brilliant tools on the market but they won’t workif operators don’t declutter their toolboxes.

EXPERT OPINION: UNIFIED PERFORMANCE ASSURANCE 24Marc Lippe says user’s performance needs must be addressed from thedata centre to the cell tower – and back again.

SPECIAL REPORT PREVIEW 27Tango Telecom previews a soon-be-published Special Report that looks beyond policy.

WEBINAR PREVIEW 28Ian Tidder previews an upcoming VanillaPlus webinar on policy management.

DIARY 31Where to go and what to see

VIDEO REVIEW 31Sudeesh Yezhuvath discusses his recent VanillaPlus video onactionable intelligence.

CLOCKING OFF! 32Mark Dye explores how TalkTalk may still have made a profit in spiteof being fined £3m.

CUSTOMEREXPERIENCEMANAGEMENT

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cVidya Networks isa global providerof revenue-intelligencesolutions for

telecoms, media and entertainment serviceproviders. The company’s product portfolio helpsoperators and service providers maximise margins,improve customer experience and optimiseecosystem relationships through revenueassurance, fraud and risk management, dealermanagement, and margin analytics. Backed by ateam of highly skilled professional experts andconsultants, cVidya’s solutions have a proven trackrecord of achieving rapid ROI and lower TCO. Withover 140 customers in five continents and anextensive network of regional offices in Europe,North America, Latin America and APAC, cVidya hasone of the largest installed bases of revenue-assurance and fraud-management implementationsworldwide. cVidya’s customers include: BritishTelecom, Telefónica Group, Vodafone Group, AT&T,O2 UK, MTN South Africa, Swisscom, TelecomItalia, China Telecom and more. For more information visit www.cvidya.com

VANILLAPLUSAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 20114

C O M M E N T

Importantly, Cisco has stated that the Comptel acquisition won’t affect its existingpartnerships with the company and that’s demonstrative of the co-operation between theOSS/BSS experts and the NEPs. I put it to Comptel’s marketing director that Comptel’sstrategy looked similar to car firm BMW’s ownership of Land Rover. BMW acquired LandRover along with Rover’s car division in the 1990s. Land Rover was the profitable jewel inthe crown of the operation and had massive expertise in producing off-road vehicles.BMW’s ownership of just a few year’s saw it successfully sell the business to Ford and,very rapidly, BMW launched it’s own range of off-road vehicles.

By buying Axiom Systems and learning about fulfilment, then selling the asset havingadded broadband fulfilment to its own product range, I suggested to Suard that Comptelwas following a similar strategy. Suard wouldn’t be drawn, saying only that he doesn’tknow much about cars, but I think there is a wider issue at stake.

NEPs recognise that operators are looking to minimise the numbers of suppliers they dealwith and see bundling OSS/BSS with their equipment as a differentiator and deal-maker. My concern focuses on who is gaining what in these types of scheme. It is straightforwardwhen Ericsson acquires a company like Telcordia. Ericsson sees value in the company,buys it and integrates it into its range of products and services. Telcordia becomesEricsson. It is less clear when an OSS/BSS specialist partners with an NEP. How muchknowledge does a Nokia Siemens Networks, a Tellabs or a Ciena gain from their OSS/BSSpartners? Could they assemble enough to go it alone in future solution generations andcut out the OSS/BSS specialists? Is this attitude of co-operation eroding specialists’differentiating sector strengths? Is it the opening move in a strategy by NEPs to addressthe back office without having to make acquisitions?

The answers to those questions ultimately depend on the exact nature of each OSS/BSSvendor’s product line and the product line of each NEP but it is clear their interest andinvolvement in the sector is set only to increase in line with the demands of operatorcustomers. NEPs would argue that OSS/BSS plays a supportive role to the star of theshow, their equipment, so it’s not worth re-inventing the expertise of this ‘small’ marketfor themselves. However, network equipment is what it is. The new business models ofthe CSP of the future all are utterly dependent on efficient, scalable, flexible back officesystems. NEPs know this and they aren’t necessarily the OSS/BSS vendor’s friendregardless of how many cheerful partnerships appear to be in place.

Enjoy the issue.

George Malim

John Aalbers,chief executive,Volubill

Martin Creaner, president,TM Forum

AndreasFreund, VPMarketing, OrgaSystems GmbH

Louis Hall, chief executive,CerillionTechnologies

Gaby Matsliach,general manager,BSS Product Line,Comverse

Pat McCarthy, VPof GlobalMarketing, ServiceDelivery Solutions,Telcordia

Simon Muderack,COO, Tribold

John Rainger,vice president,EMEA, CSGInternational

Olivier Suard,MarketingDirector, Comptel

Mac Taylor, CEO,The Moriana Group

Doug Zone, chieftechnology officer,MetraTech

Chris Yeadon,director of ProductMarketing, Ericsson

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 0208 292 [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORMark DyeTel: +44 (0) 0208 251 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESSDEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse DraperTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Mark BridgesTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

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EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Dan Baker, ResearchDirector, TechnologyResearch Institute

The NEPs are coming –should we welcome themwith open arms?

George Malim,Editor: VanillaPlus

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The sale by Comptel of the Axiom Systems assets it acquired in 2008 to CiscoSystems is illustrative of a continuing trend by network equipment providers(NEPs) to increase their involvement in back office systems at telecoms operators.All the big vendors claim at least some sort of expertise and have products withintheir portfolios. Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson all havedeveloped expertise and offer systems. Some, notably Ericsson with itsacquisitions of LHS and more recently Telcordia, are making a concerted play inthe OSS/BSS market. Others are white labelling the solutions of specialist vendors.

Amdocs completesBridgewater Systemsacquisition Amdocs has completed the acquisition ofBridgewater Systems, the provider ofpolicy management and network controlsolutions. Amdocs acquired 25,178,827common shares of Bridgewater forCAD$8.20 per share in cash, through awholly owned, indirect subsidiary ofAmdocs. Prior to the acquisition, Amdocsdid not own any securities of Bridgewater.The transaction is valued atapproximately CAD$211 million (!147.9m)or CAD$139 million (!97.4m) net ofBridgewater's cash as of 30 June. Theacquisition will expand Amdocs’Customer Experience Systems (CES)portfolio, allowing service providers toimplement new value-based datamonetisation strategies to capitalise ondata traffic growth.

“This strategic acquisition will enableservice providers to completely redefinethe real-time data experience andmaximise the return on their networkinvestments,” claimed Brian Shepherd,group president for Amdocs. “We aredelighted to welcome Bridgewater’shighly innovative, skilled professionals toAmdocs as we continue expanding ourmarket-leading CES portfolio.”

Ed Ogonek, president and CEO forBridgewater, added: “Following thisacquisition, service providers will be ableto benefit from data experience solutionsbased on a pre-integrated combination ofAmdocs’ leading convergent chargingtechnology and Bridgewater’s advancedpolicy control capabilities that address theincrease in demand for high-bandwidthservices and the exponential growth ofsmartphones and other connecteddevices.”

Ari Banerjee, senior analyst at HeavyReading, commented: “Standalonepolicy management provides anoptimised network but not the mostprofitable one, while charging by itselfprovides monetisation but does notenforce network knowledge. Successfulnetwork monetisation needs these twosystems to work together, which requiressignificant integration between thebusiness support systems (BSS) andpolicy control systems. With theBridgewater acquisition, Amdocs will bepositioned to offer a pre-integrated policymanagement and charging solution todrive service providers’ data revenue.”

N E W S U P D AT E

C O M P A N Y N E W S

Comptel has sold itsAxioss servicefulfilment software toCisco Systems for!21.3 million. Ciscoexpects the software,originally developedby Axiom Systems, acompany thatComptel acquired for!8.9 million in 2008,to strengthen itsservice providermanaged servicesoffering through the

addition of automated ordering andfulfilment.

Core to Cisco’s interest is Axioss’s abilityto enable it to extend network andservice management technologiesacross its next-generation IP networkplatforms and enable service providersto launch new video, data, mobility andcloud services to their customers.

Jesper Andersen, senior vice presidentand general manager, NetworkManagement Technology Group(NMTG), Cisco said. “With theacquisition of Axioss software andtalent, we will help enable serviceproviders to generate greater profitsusing a single management architectureto drive quick monetisation andoptimisation of their Cisco networkinvestments.”

Significantly, Comptel will continue toprovide solutions in the service fulfilmentmarket from its own portfolio. “Ourfulfilment strategy remains unchanged,”said Juhanni Hintikka, chief executive ofComptel. “We will maintain Axiosscustomer relations. Cisco, as is wellknown, is a network and services vendorand it has been talking about the abilityof this business to support their operatorbase. The businesss for us continues.”

Hintikka added that the price raised willbe used to invest in the growth ofComptel and that he estimated thetransaction to have a negative net salesimpact of approximately !2m in 2011.That figure makes the deal attractive toComptel. “Most importantly, sinceJuhanni joined Comptel in January hehas made no secret of the need to investfor growth,” said Comptel marketingdirector, Oliver Suard. “The great thingabout this deal is it provides both theincentive and the resources to investand grow in fulfilment and other areas.”

Under the deal former Axiom Systemschief executive Gareth Senior who isnow the CTO of Comptel will move toCisco. Other employees, predominatelythose in the UK at Axiom Systems’ oldheadquarters, will also transfer.The transaction is estimated to close inSeptember 2011. Comptel and Cisco willcontinue their cooperation in cloudmediation and charging.

JuhanniHintikka, chiefexecutive ofComptel

Cisco pays !21.3m for Comptel’s Axioss fulfilment software

Redknee has signed a global partnershipwith Tech Mahindra, a global systemsintegrator and business transformationconsulting organisation, to jointlydeliver software and services to thecommunications service provider market.

The deal sees the two pooling theirexpertise and knowledge with Redkneeintegrating its real-time billingcapabilities with Microsoft DynamicsCRM and Tech Mahindra, the 2011Microsoft Communications SectorPartner of the Year Award winner. Bypre-integrating Redknee's solutions intoits offering, Tech Mahindra can deliverextended BSS capabilities with a fasterdeployment speed for service providers.The partnership also widens the scopeof business opportunities that Redkneecan address among service providers.

According to Larry Goldman, head oftelecoms Software Research at AnalysysMason, the deal is indicative of CSPsplacing increasing value on fullyintegrated software solutions. "Thisagreement provides a broad range ofintegrated billing, charging, customercare and OSS capabilities that deliverimproved time to market and reducedcost," he said.

Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redkneebelieves the move will help it to addressnew revenue generating channelspresented by the cloud. "We see agrowing opportunity to addressrequirements for real-timemagnetisation solutions for wireless,multi-service and cloud serviceproviders across the world and we feelthat our partner strategy is critical tofulfilling this opportunity," he said.

Redknee and Tech Mahindra join forces for billing and CRM

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VANILLAPLUSAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011 5

N E W S I N B R I E FIn a survey of 1,000 officeworkers, conducted byVirgin Media Business,the UK enterprisecommunications provider,69% said they would liketo access all of thesoftware that they use inthe office, through a webbrowser from anylocation or any device.Workers are confidentthat their businesses willbe able to meet these

expectations, with 78% believing that inten years’ time they’ll be able to access allof their applications over the web fromoutside of the office. This would equate toover 9.3 million office workers usingvirtual working technologies by 2021.

However, many businesses are slow toadopt, expressing concerns over internetconnectivity. In a separate survey of 5,000business owners, 88% have yet to deploycloud-based applications within theircompany. The key concern is whethertheir network infrastructure is up to task.22% of business owners say they are notcomfortable with using applications via theinternet, 20% worry about the reliability oftheir internet connection and 21% areconcerned about how much bandwidth

cloud-based applications will use up.

With Gartner estimating that by 2016 all ofthe Global 2000 companies will be usingpublic cloud services, businesses thatignore these technologies risk being leftbehind. With cloud computing freeingbusinesses via remote working, they canstand to make huge productivity gains. Forexample, Apple has claimed 75% ofFortune 500 companies are testing ordeploying the iPad within theirorganisations, with the likes of Xerox,Estee Lauder, Disney and PrudentialFinancial having already issued iPads totheir workforce. On top of the productivitybenefits of working on the move,distributing cool technologies has apositive impact on morale, with manyclaiming that an iPad trumps on-siteshowers as the top staff perk.

“Business technologies have undergone aradical shift in recent years, withMacBooks now accounting for one-in-tencorporate computers and the iPad nowaccounting for 1% of all browsing,” saidMark Heraghty, managing director, VirginMedia Business. “Underpinning thepenetration of traditional consumerhardware in businesses is the less tangiblemethod of storing and accessinginformation – cloud computing.”

M A R K E T N E W S

Although CSPs are well-placed to takeadvantage of the burgeoning cloudcomputing market, they face considerablechallenges when it comes to supportingand selling cloud services. That'saccording to a new report from Ovumwhich points to the operational hurdlesoperators face to make a success of cloudservices as being ‘significant’.

In his report, 'Enabling Telco CloudServices', Ovum analyst, Mark Giles,argues that although much has beenmade of the potential for CSPs to leverageexisting assets, such as theircommunications networks, data centres,OSS and BSS systems, they remainhampered by siloed information, a lack ofbrand identity and proven service deliveryin within the cloud space.

Indeed, Giles believes that CSPs will haveto carefully consider how they deal with

the pace of innovation, pricing andmonitoring if they are to be successful.

"Infrastructure as a Service is a naturalfirst point of call for CSPs as it leveragestheir traditional hosting capabilities," hesaid. "However, as the IaaS market evolvesand becomes more competitive, so therewill be downwards pressure on prices, andtelcos would be wise to ensure that theyeither position themselves as managers ofenterprises' private clouds whilst also actingas an intermediary for public cloud services,or that they ensure they have the flexibilityin their back office to be able to explore otherpricing models such as dynamic pricing."

Giles thinks telcos should follow the leadof players such as SFR and Telstra byseriously considering joint branding,marketing or sales partnerships withexisting IT services players in order tomaximise their potential.

CSPs face significant operationalhurdles in delivery of cloud services

Mark Heraghty,managingdirector, VirginMedia Business

Virgin survey finds 69% of workersdemand access to cloud techs

Developing markets todrive global operatorrevenues to US$1.1trillionin 2012

Mobile operators in Brazil, Russia, Indiaand China (BRIC) are accounting for arapidly growing share of global mobilerevenue and look set to overtake the US inmarket size in the coming year. That’saccording to a new study from WirelessIntelligence which suggests BRICoperators have recorded the strongestrevenue growth in recent years.‘The Global Cellular Industry BalanceSheet’ suggests BRIC operators haverecorded the strongest revenue growth inrecent years. Indeed, in 2010 revenuestotalled around US$170bn (!117.7bn) in2010, an increase of US$30bn on theprevious two years. The study forecaststhat the total revenues generated bymobile operators worldwide will cross theUS$1.1 trillion mark in 2012. This will beled by the developing markets which it isbelieved will contribute over 40% of globalrevenues by this point - up from 33% fouryears ago.

With global operator revenues havingreached US$1.057 trillion last year, thestudy reveals operators invested aroundUS$200bn in capital expenditure duringthe year. In the developed world the reportsays mobile revenue growth has remainedflat at around 2% a year since 2009 with asmany as 40% of operators in developedmarkets reporting revenue declines in2010. Worst hit were operators in WesternEurope, Eastern Europe and matureMiddle Eastern markets such as Bahrainand the UAE. Strongest revenue growth in2010 came from the large operator groupswith 'developing' footprints such asAmérica Móvil and Telefónica.

The report revealed that on average voiceservice revenue still accounted for 75% ofrecurring revenues in developingcountries in 2010 and 70% in developedcountries. Meanwhile, data revenues,excluding messaging, on averagerepresented 16% of total revenue in thedeveloped region in 2010, compared to11% in the developing region. "Mobilerevenue growth in the developing worldis, in turn, fueled by operators' expansionin Brazil, Russia, India and China, as wellas by demand in fast-growing Asianeconomies," said Joss Gillet, wirelessIntelligence senior analyst and author ofthe report.

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Outsourcery launches theO-Cloud for critical line ofbusiness applications

Outsourcery, a cloud service provider,has announced the launch of its newplatform, O-Cloud. The solution followstwo years of planning, a multi-millionpound investment, 2,000 hours ofengineering and has been built usingtechnologies from HP and Microsoft. Aswell as providing a platform for runningcritical line of business applications anddelivering failover, Outsourcery says itwill set new standards in providingintegrated network-level security anddisaster recovery (DR) features such asIntrusion Detection as standard, as wellas optional recovery to a secondary site.

Outsourcery hopes that a unique sellingpoint for O-Cloud will be the ability todeliver professional transformationservices to get customers into the cloudin a planned, measured and specificmanner as opposed to leaving them tomake their own decisions as to whatservices are needed.

According to James Griffin, director ofproduct strategy, the O-Cloud was builtto de-risk the adoption of cloud for lineof business applications. He believes thatby engineering the platform to includeenterprise grade security and disasterrecovery features as standard, thecompany is re-defining acceptablestandards for true business-grade cloudoperations.

Sybase brings intelligence foreveryone to the enterprise

Sybase, an SAP company, hasannounced the general availability ofSybase IQ 15.3, powered by a newgeneration of shared everythingMassively Parallel Processing (MPP)technology. With this release, enterpriseIT departments can overcome scalabilitylimitations of data warehouses in manyindustries, including telecoms. Byimplementing a business analyticsinformation solution that allows sharingof computing and data resources withthe innovative Sybase IQ PlexQ™technology, enterprises can lead the nextwave of data warehouse transformationby breaking down user and informationsilos to drive analytics adoptionthroughout the entire organisation.

N E W S U P D AT E

P R O D U C T N E W S

VOSS Solutions, aprovider of unifiedcommunications andcollaboration (UC&C)service delivery andmanagement software,has announced thegeneral availability ofVOSS 7.4, a highly

scalable fulfillment managementplatform that overarches complex UC&Cnetworks for managed service providersand large enterprises.

VOSS 7.4 now supports the latest releaseof Cisco’s UC applications, includingUnified Communications Manager 8.6and its advanced suite of voice andmobility features; Unity Connection 8.6and its advanced suite of messagingfeatures; Unified Presence 8.6; CiscoWebEx; and an extensive range UnifiedMobility Clients and the latest Cisco

devices, such as the Cisco CIUS.

With VOSS 7.4, the vendor is nowreleasing its latest integrated UC&Cmanagement technology at the sametime that Cisco releases its UCapplications update. This means that thevery latest Cisco UC applications aresupported by VOSS management, wellahead of other management systems.

“As UC&C becomes more widely adopted,fulfillment management is a necessity,rather than an option,” said Mike Frayne,CEO at VOSS Solutions. “Cisco hasrecognised this fact with its decision toembed VOSS within its new HCSarchitecture. VOSS 7.4 not only simplifiesthe delivery and management of UC&Cservices and applications through acentralized administration portal, itenables organisations to make radicaloperational savings at the same time.”

Tekelec has integrated its session,policy, performance and subscriber datamanagement products into newsolutions for LTE. The companypreviously announced a win with an un-named tier-one North Americanoperator, that saw integration ofTekelec’s Home Subscriber Server (HSS)address resolution database with itsDiameter Signaling Router (DSR). Thisallows the service provider to scale LTEservices by routing Diameter messagesto the appropriate HSS in the network.

In addition to those two products,Tekelec’s LTE portfolio includes: PolicyServer, a Policy and Charging RulesFunction (PCRF) that integrates with theHSS and acts as the brain for policycoordination, dynamic bandwidthcontrol, charging, consumption andother factors for a subscriber’s entiredata session; and PerformanceIntelligence Center (PIC), a performancemanagement system that convertsnetwork traffic information into usefulbusiness intelligence for serviceproviders to improve the customerexperience. The PIC integrates with theDSR to eliminate the need for additional

probes and network elements to analysehow subscribers are using IP-enableddevices and applications. In addition,Tekelec has added the PICtroubleshooting features to the coreDSR platform to continuously monitorthe DSR’s performance.

Each of the LTE products runs onTekelec’s Eagle XG middlewareplatform, built to meet the core networkscalability needs of the world’s largestnetworks.

Joe McGarvey, principal analyst atresearch firm Current Analysis said:“Tekelec’s strategy is to replicate its 2Gand 3G network successes in LTE bysimplifying and streamlining complexnetwork architectures to enable networkscalability, flexibility and reliability.”

Ron de Lange, president and CEO atTekelec, added: “As service providersevolve to LTE, they are discovering newrevenue opportunities and architecturalhurdles. Tekelec’s integrated LTEsolutions are helping our customersscale their networks to deliver advanced,revenue-generating LTE services.”

Mike Frayne,CEO at VOSSSolutions

VOSS launches 7.4 for delivery and management ofunified communications and collaboration services

Tekelec introduces integrated LTE solutions includinghome subscriber server solution

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Turkcell selects Progressfor event processing

Turkcell has revealed that it has gone livewith its implementation of the ProgressApama Complex Event Processingplatform, enabling it to offer real-timesituation based promotion capabilities tocustomers.

The solution will enable the operator torespond instantly to its mobilecustomers’ situations, providing themwith customised offers based on morethan 150 criteria and usage patternsincluding location and personalpreferences.

As a result, Turkcell expects to cut thetime required to execute a marketingcampaign in minutes, so that by January,it can analyse more than one millionsubscriber preferences per hour todevelop relevant marketing campaigns.

As Burak Sevilengul, chief marketingofficer, Turkcell explained, the ability toinnovate only becomes possible whenknowing a customer and being able totruly personalise their service. "We needto satisfy all our customer’s needs, whichmeans we need insight into theirchanging expectations and a way tocommunicate effectively to ensure broadawareness,” he said.

Volubill brings chargingand policy to Cameroon

Volubill has announced that 4G AfricaAG, a Swiss company operating in subSaharan Africa, has completed the firstphase of a mobile 4G WiMAX networkdeployment in Cameroon including theimplementation of its CONTROL-IT andCHARGE-IT solutions.

The 4G Africa project operates anintegrated subscriber managementsystem containing AAA, service policymanagement and real-time convergentbilling capability, based on Volubill’scommercial solution and self-developedfront-end applications for CRM, customerself-care and point-of-sales.

John Aalbers, CEO, Volubill said,Broadband penetration serves only 1% ofthe total population and without thecopper infrastructure WiMAX is cheaperto roll out and provides greater efficiencyfor a developing region that is data hungry.

N E W S U P D AT E

C O N T R A C T N E W S

Tunisiana, the Tunisianoperator owned by QTEL,has chosen CSGInterconnect to streamlineits operationalprocesses, improverevenues, reduce costsand optimise cashflow.The operator, whichlaunched in December2002 with the ambitionto become the largestprivate primary operatorin the Tunisian market,now has more than five

million active subscribers which meansit has achieved that aim.

CSG Interconnect is an interconnectbilling and settlements solution claimedto enable Tunisiana to consolidate andmanage all of its partner agreementsfrom a single platform, allowing theprovider to access competitive rates,minimise disputes and reduce potentialleakage. In addition to the features of the

CSG Interconnect solution, the operatoracknowledged CSG’s reputation for on-time implementations and its deepknowledge of the requirements of themarket in Tunisia.

“We chose CSG due to its position in theinterconnection billing area with itsability to deploy a full suite of productsin the billing and OSS area,” said YvesGauthier, chief executive of Tunisiana.

John Rainger, CSG International’s vicepresident of Europe, Middle East andAfrica, added:“With CSG Interconnect,Tunisiana is able to substantially reduceits manual processes, speed itsreconciliation with partners for fastertime to revenue, and easily configurenew partner agreements for enhancedservice offerings. Tunisiana will also beable to view its interconnect businessand value-added services in a holisticfashion through reporting, providingadded visibility and control for enablingbetter business decisions.”

Vodafone Iceland selects CTI Group SmartRecord

Tunisiana chooses CSG International for interconnect

John Rainger,CSGInternational’svice presidentof Europe,Middle Eastand Africa

CTI Group’s SmartRecord carrier-gradecall recording solution has been selectedby Vodafone Iceland. SmartRecordenables the operator to record telephoneconversations on its next generation IPmultimedia BroadSoft BroadWorks voiceplatform to help its customers meetregulatory, quality management andlegal demands.

Vodafone Iceland’s next generationnetwork is a geographically distributed,hosted, IP multimedia subsystem (IMS)deployment which spans multiplecountries and handles multiple networkmethodologies. The decision to choosean IMS environment was made in orderto enable scalable deployment andprovisioning, and generate higherrevenues per end-user. The integrationof the SmartRecord platform into its IMSenvironment enables Vodafone Icelandto deliver a crucial regulatoryapplication, further increasing userfunctionality and enabling enhancedapplication revenues. This validateddeployment in an IMS environmentopens the door for enabling a call

recording application, regardless of usernetwork access methodology, especially inVoLTE and other wireless environments.

Andy Wilson, vice president ofworldwide sales at CTI Group, said: “Themulti-national, multi-companycoordination between Vodafone Iceland,Ericsson and CTI Group has delivered ascalable, revenue generating applicationfor Vodafone Iceland’s next generationnetwork, which I am confident will be ofextraordinary value to VodafoneIceland’s increasingly mobileworkforce.”

Ragnheiour Guomundsdóttir, head ofproduct management and marketing atVodafone Iceland, added that: “theselection of CTI Group’s hosted callrecording solution, SmartRecord, waswon against stiff competition. The richfunctionality and technical innovationsof SmartRecord, supported by anefficient, knowledgeable and responsivecommercial and technical team at CTIGroup was impressive and well receivedby our product management team.”

Sponsored by:


P E O P L E N E W S

P E O P L E N E W SVANILLAPLUS AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 201110

Olaf Swantee Appointed CEOof Everything Everywhere

Everything Everywhere, the mergedbusiness of France Telecom Orange andDeutsche Telekom in the UK, has appointedOlaf Swantee as chief executive officer.Swantee will take up his new job on 1September and replace Tom Alexander whohas resigned. The company stated Alexanderhas resigned both for personal reasons and topursue other interests. Alexander will continueto advise the company and support Swantee inthe transition, until the end of the year.

Alexander joined Orange in 2008 as CEO of the UK business. Hebecame CEO of Everything Everywhere when the company wasofficially formed on 1 July 2010 following the merger of OrangeUK and T-Mobile UK.

“It’s been my privilege to serve Everything Everywhere thesepast twelve months, and Orange before that,” said Alexander.“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished: we conducted a rapidintegration of the new company, completing a companywiderestructuring, and maintained good commercial momentumthroughout, delivering record retention levels and growth on ourcontract customer base across both brands. There is never aneasy time to leave a company that you care deeply for but, forpersonal reasons, I feel now is a good moment to step back. Iam delighted to welcome Olaf into his new role. I’d like to thankmy team and all the staff at Everything Everywhere for theirgreat work and support, and to wish them all continuing successin the future.”

Olaf Swantee, an economics graduate with an MBA from theEcole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris – École des Affaires deParis (ESCP-EAP), is currently France Telecom’s Executive VicePresident, Operations in Europe (except France) and Sourcing.Prior to telecoms, Olaf had 17 years experience in the ITindustry, holding senior leadership, sales and marketingpositions with HP, Compaq and DEC in Europe and the UnitedStates.

Since 2007, he has successfully transformed Orange throughoutEurope. He was instrumental in the Orange UK turnaround andhas been on the board of Everything Everywhere since itsinception. He will relocate to London with his family.

Swantee, previously executive vice president of Europeanactivities and sourcing for France Telecom Orange and boardmember of Everything Everywhere, added: “I’d like to paytribute to Tom’s leadership, and I am looking forward to buildingon the successes that Everything Everywhere has alreadyaccomplished, and to taking on the challenge of moving thecompany even further ahead in the coming months and years.”Tim Höttges, chairman of Everything Everywhere’s board andchief financial officer of Deutsche Telekom, said: “Olaf Swanteehas a deep knowledge of Everything Everywhere’s business andhas been a director on the board of the company since its verybeginning, and is ideally placed to provide both continuity andprogression.”

Gervais Pellissier, member of Everything Everywhere’s board,deputy CEO and CFO of France Telecom, said: “We would like tothank Tom Alexander for his significant accomplishments atEverything Everywhere and wish him well in the future.”

Alexander’s departure has come as a surprise to the industry. Heset up Virgin Mobile and floated it before taking a ‘career

I have previously used this columnto talk about the recruitmentindustry in general and discussmethods to improve recruitmenteffectiveness in the networking, OSSand BSS markets. Those are subjectsthat are dear to my heart but it'sdawned on me that many Vanilla

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Kineticom is a specialist recruitment company. Ourexpertise is to quickly identify, assess and securehigh quality talent for our clients within the NetworkInfrastructure, OSS and BSS arenas. My partner RobShaw and I have been recruiting within the telecomsworld since the early 1990s and have built up areputation for decency, deep industry knowledge andspeed of delivery.

We currently employ 16 people based inBuckinghamshire, UK. We provide permanent –retained and contingency – and contract resource tocarriers, vendors and systems integratorsthroughout EMEA.

I see our main strength as being as simple as the factthat we have learnt to ask the right questions.Experience, knowledge and a focus within key areassuch as network infrastructure and OSS and BSSenables us to drill down, dig deep and get to theheart of an individual's DNA and an organisation’sculture. We are not typical because of that sector-specific experience. We are not generalist technologyrecruiters and that makes us different. We areflexible and we have a huge impact on our clients’performance and candidates’ careers.

I'd like to explore how we might be able to help you andyour organisation and encourage you to contact me.

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Jason Bandy

OlafSwantee

Welcome to our regular Jobs columnbrought to you by Kineticom,sponsors of People News

P E O P L E N E W S

break’ in 2006 in which he indulged his passion for motorracing. He joined Orange two years later. Before the merger,Swantee was more senior to Alexander, running Orange'soperations across Europe. He is currently France Telecom'sexecutive vice-president. Some commentators havesuggested that the parent companies had become frustratedover the financial performance of the business but theowners state that the forthcoming results will showEverything Everywhere had hit its targets.

The change may simply be a case of Alexander wanting toreturn to his extensive garage but a sinister reading of thesituation would be that France Telecom is looking to exertgreater control of the business through placing one of itskey executives in the senior position at the company.Richard Moat, CFO and deputy CEO of the business, and theformer CEO of T-Mobile UK, will continue as DeutscheTelekom’s counterweight at the top of the company.

GSMA replaces Rob Conwaywith Anne Bouverot

The GSMA has announced that AnneBouverot from France Telecom Orangeis to become the association’s new head.Bouverot was most recently executive vicepresident of mobile services for the Paris-headquartered operator and has served onthe board of the GSMA for the past twoyears.

Bouverot replaces long-standing CEO RobConway, who announced his resignation inJune. The organisation’s chairman Franco

Bernabè, the CEO of Telecom Italia, wants the GSMA torefocus on serving the interests of its operator members.

Bouverot will not assume the label of CEO, instead takingthe title of the GSMA’s Director General. The reason for thisswitch, says the GSMA, is because the association’s boardand its chairman wanted the GSMA's new leader’s title to“fully reflect the GSMA’s role as an association representingthe interests of its members.”

Prior to her most recent role at Orange, Bouverot wasresponsible for international business development at theoperator, and her achievements include the privatisation ofTelkom Kenya, new mobile licences in Armenia and Tunisia,and partnerships in Portugal and UAE. Before moving toOrange, she led a 600-person business unit of Equant andwas responsible for developing IT services for Equant’smultinational business customers. She began her career intelecoms as project manager for Telmex in Mexico in 1991.

“I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me by theGSMA Board. The GSMA has played an important role inthe development of the mobile industry, uniting the worldbehind a standard technology and ensuring seamless andinteroperable mobile services for billions of users globally,”commented Bouverot in a prepared statement. “We are nowentering a new phase, where virtually everyone andeverything is connected by mobile, and with many newchallenges facing the industry. I am looking forward toleading the GSMA to help and support its operator membersto face these challenges and continue their development.”

Tekelec appoints Douglas Suriano CTOTekelec has named Douglas Suriano as chief technologyofficer. Suriano will be responsible for product innovation,leadership in standards bodies and industry forums, andadvocacy for mobile data solutions across Tekelec’s globalcustomer base.

He will retain his current responsibilities as vice president ofengineering, which he has held since joining Tekelec in2003. In his eight-year tenure, he and his team havedeveloped Tekelec’s next-generation mobile broadbandportfolio through organic growth and strategic acquisitions,while expanding market share of its voice and textsolutions.

“Doug’s passion for identifying and developing market-leading technology places him in the ideal position to driveour mobile broadband innovation,” said Ron de Lange,Tekelec’s president and CEO. “Doug has earned the respectof our customers and partners and will apply his experienceand expertise to identify solutions to solve their corenetwork challenges as they launch and scale their LTE andIMS networks.”

Amit Daniel joins cVidya

cVidya Networks has appointed AmitDaniel as executive vice president ofmarketing and business development.Daniel has over 17 years experience insenior marketing and commercialpositions in the communications andtelecoms industries worldwide and herresponsibilities will include strategicmarketing, product management andbusiness development.

“We are delighted to welcome Amit Danielto cVidya and are looking forward to the impact she willhave on our company”, commented Alon Aginsky,President and CEO of cVidya Networks. “Amit has beenresponsible for various product offerings and roadmapsthroughout their product lifecycle and brings rich marketand product experiences from her previous executivepositions to our organisation. We are confident that she willhelp us with our long term strategies as we enter the nextstages of growth, namely, maintaining our leadership whilstentering new markets.”

“I’m excited to be joining cVidya and to help expand thebusiness with innovative strategies” said Amit Daniel. “WithcVidya being the global leader of the revenue intelligencesolutions space, our next steps are to maximise theexperiences of our client base through generating newproducts, roadmaps and services to help them achieve theirgoals. At the same time we’ll be looking to increase cVidya’smarket share and take our expertise into new areas. I’mconfident that with my telecoms and market experiencesand background, I will be able to help cVidya continue togrow and remain at the forefront of this domain.”

Prior to joining cVidya, Daniel served as VP of marketingand business development for Starhome, a provider ofroaming solutions and held various managerial roles inproduct management teams.

AnneBouverot

AmitDaniel


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C O N T R A C T H O T L I S T

VanillaPlus Hot List: August/September 2011

Amdocs Telenor Serbia Deployment of Amdocs' OSS as the inventory and planning system to support the first phase ofTelenor Serbia OSS transformation project 6.11

Clarity Telekom Malaysia Completion of its Network Inventory System (NIS) project to enable rapid and accurate deploymentof new services 9.11

Convergys Guyana Telephone Deployment of Comverse ONE Billing & Active Customer Management with Comverse Mobile& Telegraph Internet, and Comverse HUB Voice & Messaging Value-Added Services (VAS), to power transformation

to enable OPEX reduction 8.11

CSG International Tunisiana, Tunisia CSG Interconnect billing and settlements solution to consolidate and manage all partneragreements from a single platform 8.11

CTI Group Vodafone, Iceland SmartRecord call recording solution to enable recording of telephone conversations on nextgeneration IP multimedia voice platform to help it meet regulatory, quality and legal demands 7.11

Evolving Systems Indosat Mobile, India Dynamic SIM Allocation (DSA) solution that allows prepaid subscribers to choose tariff packagewhen they activate their phone 6.11

Fortinet SK Telecom, FortiGate-3950B network security appliances to protect 24 million subscribers using 3G and 4GSouth Korea LTE services from malicious attacks 8.11

Gemalto UniCredit, Slovakia Optelio microprocessor-based contactless stickers for commercial mobile payment deploymentfor phones without contactless features 7.11

Giesecke & Bell Mobility, Canada SmartRoam platform to optimise over-the-air updates for centralised outbound roaming solution.Devrient 7.11

Interactive Jersey Telecom, UK Replacement of contact centre equipment and telephone system with a new solution to link fiveIntelligence offices across Jersey and Guernsey 8.11

Progress Software Turkcell, Turkey Implementation of the Progress Apama Complex Event Processing (CEP) platform enablingreal-time situation based promotion capabilities 6.11

Red Hat Telstra, Australia Extension of partnership to enable expanded choice for enterprise customers in the cloud. Telstraoffers Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a guest operating system on its infrastructure cloud service. 8.11

Redknee Telefónica, Spain Pricing analysis and optimisation solution to enable in-depth profit analysis and forecasting datafor residential and enterprise customers. 9.11

Telcordia Chile Selected to provide number portability for all the country's operators on behalf of the nationalNumber Portability Committee 8.11

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Vendor(s) Client, Country Product / Service (Duration & Value) Deployed

Boku, an online mobile payments enabler, has launched directoperator billing with French carriers Bouygues Telecom andSFR, a subsidiary of Vivendi, adding to existing direct billingwith Orange France. The partnership offers an additional 32million French customers the ability to pay for digital goods andservices using only their existing wireless service account, withthe charge appearing on their carrier bill. The agreement meansnearly all mobile users in France will be covered by directoperator billing from Boku.

The French moves are not alone. Earlier this month, Vodafonebegan rolling out direct operator billing for apps sold throughthe Android Market, allowing users to charge purchases direct totheir phone bill. “Vodafone operator billing extends developers’reach to the large number of app-buying customers who areunwilling or unable to use credit cards,” a Vodafone statementcommented. “In some countries this can be more than 90% ofthe market.”

The first operations to get operator billing for Android will beVodafone UK and Vodafone Germany. The operator intends toextend the payment method to its global properties.

In the US, T-Mobile announced at the start of the month that it issoon to launch what it calls ‘direct carrier billing’ to enable usersto make purchases that will appear on their phone bills. However,the service has attracted the attention of the Consumers Union,which has voiced fears that operator billing leaves customersunprotected from fraud or merchant errors. “Mobile paymentproducts promise a new, convenient way to pay but consumerscould end up losing money if something goes wrong with theirtransaction,” said Michelle Jun, a senior attorney with theUnion. “Mobile payment services like the one being launched byT-Mobile could put consumers at risk and fail to provide theprotections they deserve.”

No such concerns have yet been aired in Europe and Bokuemphasizes its security and ease of use. MovieStarPlanet is onemerchant already using the service with Bouyges and SFR.“Purchasing … is now even easier with this partnershippowering a safe, secure and convenient direct carrier billingoption,” said the company’s CEO Claus Lykke Jensen. "Userfeedback and increased revenue clearly indicate how muchpeople love the convenience of Boku to pay via their mobilenumber. This new partnership will extend that convenience tomany more loyal gamers in France."

Operator billing arrives in France, the UK, Germany and the US

N E W S I N B R I E F

CSPs must movefrom simplyaddressingknown revenuerisks to attackingthe unknowns oftheir operations

VanillaPlus: Alon, cVidya has now been inthe industry for 10 years, with over 150global clients, including 20 of the largestoperators in the world. How did you gethere?

Alon Aginsky: When I founded cVidya in 2001, Iknew that we were entering into an industry thatwould keep growing and where customers’needs would keep evolving. Back then we sawbusinesses were trying to manage their valuechains efficiently but were lacking the expertiseto address these needs. Businesses were in needof products, solutions and consultants that couldprovide much needed support and whose benefitwould far offset their cost.

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial streak and Iknew that communication service providers(CSPs), with their incredibly advanced and

diverse revenue channels, needed the ability tocontrol these channels and prevent leakage. Iwanted to create a business that would provide awin-win offering. My vision was to establishcVidya as a company that would enablebusinesses to achieve a high ROI from oursolutions; that we would actually save thecustomer money through engaging us and thatthey would be capable to optimise and generatenew profitable streams once revenues areassured. However first we needed to educate themarket that such solutions were possible toimplement and actually work.

VP: As operators offer more and morecomplex services and the value chainbecomes more distributed, how has therevenue assurance challenge intensified?What specific challenges are CSPs lookingto overcome right now?

Alon Aginsky is CEO and president of cVidya Networks, the provider of revenueintelligence solutions for telecom, media and entertainment service providers that heestablished 10 years ago. Prior to cVidya, Aginsky served as vice president of businessdevelopment and business alliances at C. Mer Industries, where he was responsible fornew ventures in telecoms customer care, billing, and network management solutions.Aginsky holds a BA in Business Administration from New York Technology University andalso helps young startups grow and prosper. Here he shares his view of the newrevenue intelligence challenges with VanillaPlus.

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T A L K I N G H E A D S

AA: Each operator tries to keep winning newbusiness and retaining existing customers byoffering advanced services or enhancements toexisting ones. Each time this occurs, the valuechain becomes more distributed and complex,and so the need for revenue intelligencesolutions grows. Some of the major issues andchallenges we’re addressing for operators todayrelate to business intelligence with regards topricing analytics. Whether it’s for a customerthreatening to leave unless they are offered abetter package or service, or a large corporationlooking to source new services, CSPs need to beable to ascertain instantly what price or servicesthey need to offer in order to retain the profitablecustomers or win a lucrative contract. Pricinganalytics across the board is a key issue for CSPsas they look for new sources of revenues that arenot coming from new subscribers or servicelaunches, but from innovative bundles andpackages to attract existing and new users. Thesolutions that enable the operators to identify theimpact on pricing and provide recommendationsfor tailored pricing per subscriber are keydifferentiators.

Another challenge that CSPs face is internalfraud, which is fraud that occurs from withintheir own organisations. We did a poll last yearand 85% of CSPs felt that internal fraud was a‘growing concern’. Internal fraud can range froman employee fixing bills for their friends or familyto large scale financial fraud. CSPs were notalways in a position to catch these fraudsters andwould rely on word of mouth or other tactics.Our solutions come with dashboards designedspecifically for identifying these issues.

VP: Where do you feel the RevenueIntelligence domain is heading over thenext few years?

AA: In the past revenue assurance (RA) andfraud used to be mostly reactive, focusing on the‘known knowns’. While this approach proveditself as very effective resulting in significantfinancial recompense, its effect on preventingleakages was limited. In practice, the percentageof the recovery of detected leakage is far frombeing 100%, mainly due to commercialconsiderations that limited the amount of backbilling. Hence the industry needed to becomemore proactive, and prevent the leakages. This isexactly the benefit of adopting and adaptingwell-established risk managementmethodologies into the RA and fraud world. Wemanaged to set standards in the industrythrough our CTO’s leadership of the RISKconcept in the TM Forum, incorporating RiskManagement methodologies into its RevenueIntelligence solutions. Our solutions enable CLevel management to deploy a top-down view oftheir business and proven revenue protectionmethods enabling them to benefit from clearstrategic planning and ongoing processes toachieve the set targets.

Currently, we see operators utilising consultingservices when initially deploying the RA and

fraud solutions, mainly using one-off consultingservices, but the requirement for the market isfor ongoing consulting capabilities to support theproactive approach. cVidya is the first in theindustry to embed risk managementmethodology into its solutions. We will berevolutionising the industry by enablingoperators to easily identify targeted risks andknow exactly what threats will arise. We will alsobe enabling the RA, fraud and pricing specialiststo benefit from an easy adoption of thismethodology in their day-to-day operationsthrough wizards and built in support within theproducts.

Another trend we will see increasing is fraudconducted through social media channels. Fraudis one of the major concerns of CSPs andfraudsters themselves will always try and be onestep ahead of a company. The dramatic growthof social networks around the internet world hasbrought us to the understanding that theinformation and data accumulated within thesenetworks can be highly beneficial to fraudinvestigation processes. With virtually everything going on in or around the internet,fraudsters and their peers also act within, andmanipulate for their criminal intent, thesurrounding social networks. Embedding socialnetworks, like Facebook, as an integrated tooland source of information to the fraudmanagement system is something that helpsfraud investigators in their search for relevantand useful information to uncover new fraudscenarios and trends.

VP: In terms of new business and deliverymodels – cloud computing seems to be topof mind, what is your perspective on howcloud computing will change our industry?

AA: Yes, cloud computing is definitely one of theexciting technology and business model shifts inrecent years. For the communications industry ithas two main implications. The first implicationis that service providers are themselvesbecoming cloud service providers. This allowsthem to move up the value chain to offer ITservices – in order to reduce churn, increaseARPU and ultimately avoid becoming dumbpipes. Service providers who will thrive in thisnew era are those who will offer hundreds andeven thousands of ever changing applicationsdelivered with innovative pricing models andover a complex value chain. This is challengingfrom a number of aspects and monetisation inparticular – namely billing for these services andpreventing fraud and other revenue leakages. Toaddress these issues, cVidya launched IRIS forCloud Services earlier this year – a solutionaddressed at tackling the specific challenges thatservice providers offering cloud services facewhen they want to assure their cloud servicesmargins. The second implication is that serviceproviders are also becoming consumers of cloudservices. We see more and more BSS/OSSapplications starting to move to the cloud, andwhile cloud computing is still in its earlyadoption phase, its benefits – including fast time


“Revenue assurance

and fraud used to

be mostly reactive,

focusing on the

‘known knowns’.

While this approach

proved itself as very

effective resulting in

significant financial

recompense, its

effect on preventing

leakages was

limited.”

VANILLAPLUS AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 201114

"

to market and low affordable monthly pricing –are just too compelling to ignore. This is why lastyear we launched cVidyaCloud, our umbrella ofon demand revenue intelligence applications, forservice providers of all sizes. It is available overthe web on a monthly subscription fee withoutthe need to install hardware or software.

VP: How does cVidya work with itscustomers to deploy solutions thatgenerate rapid ROI and have an impact ontheir profits?

AA: cVidya provides a complete solution fromthe operator’s perspective. We provide our IRISoffering together with consulting services whichenables us to define the priorities with theoperators and guarantee ROI for the differentproduct deployments. The fact that we provideconsulting together with supportive products andtools allows us to adjust the products to theneeds of the operators more effectively in orderto prevent leakage and identify revenue losses.We also ensure that our products are synced witheach other. We enable complete knowledgesharing between the IRIS portfolio applicationsbe they fraud, dealer management, marginanalysis or revenue assurance. Customers aresometimes tempted to take cheap or low-costsolutions but then they often find themselvesstuck with poor performance products, lackingthe flexibility to address new challenges, andwithout the innovative features that they need orexpect. We make sure that our products addressall those needs whilst taking into account the ROI

that the client expects. Lastly, we ensure that theclient knows that we’re here to stay. Although aproject might come to an end, the relationshipdoesn’t. We enter into a long-term partnership sothat the customer will know that we will be thereto help their business grow and provideconsultation and advice at each new stage alongthe way. We work closely and continuously withthe customer to brainstorm and provide ourexpertise from other customers to alldeployments.

VP: What do you think makes a playerstand out in the Revenue Intelligencedomain?

AA: One key ingredient, and something thatcVidya is known for, is innovation. We were firstin the market with revenue assurance and fraudsolutions for 3G, data and IP services, rating andbilling verification. We are currently developingand deploying, in partnership with our customers,a solution for the mobile money space thatenables operators to tailor their revenueassurance solutions to fit the new value chain ofmobile money. We are also penetrating othervertical markets such as utilities, M2M and tele-voting in which knowledge we have gained fromthe telecom, entertainment and media areas willbe used to tailor solutions to these markets.

In addition, a player stands out when they have areputation for delivery excellence and acommitment to the successful ending of everyproject they engage in.

“With virtually everything going on in or

around the internet, fraudsters and

their peers also act within, and

manipulate for their criminal intent, the

surrounding social networks.”


R E V E N U E M A N A G E M E N T

They say information is power, but what kind of power? What's the best way to managerevenue and how does business insight help service providers ensure they've deployedtheir resources sufficiently to support a just-enough service model, asks Jonny Evans?

For many communications service providers(CSPs), data is scattered across multiplesystems, making the right information hard tofind and revenues tortuous to manage. "Datais often looked at from a technical perspectiverather than a customer point of view," saysAnssi Tauriainen from Aito Technologies.

Things are changing for CSPs as their productlines become more complex and the coststhey incur from supporting new servicesspirals out of relation to the revenues theygenerate. A forced reassessment is underway,explains Clarity chief product officer, TonyKalcina: "The telecoms industry has beenforced to reassess longstanding businessmodels to fend off advances fromheavyweight competitors, such as Apple andGoogle."

James DeMarco, CTO of charging billing andcustomer care at Nokia Siemens Networksexplains that historically: "Flat rate andunlimited offers have encouragedunpredictable user behaviour in networkenvironments, effectively de-coupling the costof service from its purchase price. Thisapproach has led to foreseeable usage spikesas well as some unforeseen externalities formany mobile operators in particular."

But service expectations are changing.Customers want broadband, and also wantcalls, and CSPs must find a way to balanceuser demand with infrastructure costs: theyneed information about usage patterns todayin order to develop solutions for intelligentbilling tomorrow. This information will helpthem develop services "good enough" forconsumer needs.

For Amos Sivan, CEO, FTS, One of thechallenges operators face in deliveringbroadband as data traffic continues to grow isto manage network congestion withoutmarginalising their subscribers and at thesame time monetise network traffic, improvesubscriber-facing activities and increase ROI innetwork capacity.

InTune Networks CTO, John Dunne,explains existing networks "aren't dynamicenough to respond to unpredictable traffic."Carrier costs keep climbing but revenuedoesn't keep up. In addition, "Services areclosed and bundled tightly, so users cannotobtain services on-demand. Their financialsystems and service creation systems are notlinked in any way to the underlyinginfrastructure." "

Data mining andbusiness insight,why it makes sense


Amos Sivan:Managecongestionwithoutmarginalisingusers

Brian Carroll:Operators canfind a happymedium

The Google/Apple impact means carriers havelost control of the advertising dollar. "Onesolution is for content producers andcommunication service providers to createmutually beneficial business models based onshared value chains," Clarity's Kalcina adds.

Arantech CEO, Brian Carroll, also believesintelligent and continuous management andmonitoring should help providers find a happymedium between using customer informationand maintaining the network by delivering anendless stream of business intelligence to allrelevant departments. "The operator couldextract data analysis of the quality andconsumption of network services, brokendown by service, subscriber and device," heexplains. This data could be matched withintelligent billing systems designed to "matchindividual customer usage and to improvetheir overall experience," he says.

Sivan adds: "By offering packages based onthe service or application, service providerscan increase revenues beyond anything that aflat rate usage policy can offer. The providerwill be able to offer subscribers packages suchas YouTube subscription, or online gamingsubscription, or regular surfing and emailsubscription.

Tauriainen from Aito Technologies agreesthat intelligent data could enable operators "tofocus their retention efforts only on 5% ofcustomers bringing in 50% of voice minutes,or direct marketing activities to latestsmartphone owners who are not yet usingdata services," for example. Segmenting thecustomer base in order to retain the mostvaluable customers.

Tony Jackson, director of telecoms solutionstrategy at Convergys, thinks the same way."Operators can now rely on intelligentsystems, which ensure that compatiblesoftware billing systems are in place to meetthe specific demands of each subscriber," he

says. Such systems enable operators to meetthe demands of both prepaid and postpaidconsumers in real-time.

Perhaps service providers can alsodifferentiate traffic on different criteria, suchas quality of service, bandwidth allocation orapplication types.

Randy Fuller, director of strategicmanagement at policy management provider,Tekelec, thinks that's the case. "Operatorswould be in a position to make trafficadjustments based on usage, meet thedemand for new applications and offer a levelof service that meets with a subscriber'sexpectations," he remarks.

This new arena sees traditional revenuemanagement becoming inextricably correlatedwith network and policy management. Thevalue generated from services has to berelated to the cost of providing them and,better yet, allow for profit.

The future? Dave Labuda, Founder and CEO,MATRIXX Software, sees it thus: "CSPs willuse this intelligence to enable context-basedpricing in which not everyone will be chargedthe same. This will give them the ability tobetter shape and influence the demand ontheir networks and platforms - for examplecharging higher rates during prime gaminghours or offering free Web browsing duringhours when network utilisation is low."

This new service environment is morecomplex than ever before, but has thepotential to deliver the granularity of data thatrevenue management functions require.Operators, however, must face the challengeof identifying just how to extract the meatyrevenue data they require from the murkysoup of extraneous, non-integrated data theyhold.


Dave Labuda:Not everyonewill be chargedthe same

The telecomsindustry has beenforced to reassesslongstandingbusiness models tofend off advancesfrom heavyweightcompetitors, suchas Apple andGoogle.


CUSTOMER EXPER IENCE MANAGEMENT

Many CSPs are finally wising up to the benefits of delivering a truly unique experienceto subscribers and changing their shape to focus on rich customer experiences ratherthan a row of green lights in their network operations centres. Mark Dye reports.

For most consumers the experience of dealingwith their network provider tends to be a love-hate relationship but something of anecessary evil. That connection to the outsideworld is something most of us can’t dowithout so it’s amazing what we learn to livewith. If I had a cent for every time a call hadcut out on my previous Orange or Vodafone3G network I would be rich by now.

The point here is that CSPs need to be doingmore to improve the customer experience andthe good news is that most are trying, in manycases very hard. The bad news? Well, it’s thatthey’re not quite there yet.

As Brian Carroll, chief executive officer ofArantech, points out: “As it stands, mobileoperators are adept at attracting newcustomers, but after the point sale tend to failin their duty as a customer-focused serviceprovider.”

That’s because the first time most mobileoperators hear from their customers after theinitial sale is when calls are made to thecontact centre and yes, you’ve guessed it,invariably these are complaints.

Of course, this is ironic, in a world where a keypriority for operators is to reduce the numberof in-bound calls because of financial drain

associated with running call centres.Historically this has left most playing reactivelyand attempting to win new customers ratherthan retaining them, says Carroll.

Thankfully CSPs have begun to sit up, thinkabout customer experience and the reams ofdata they have at their disposal to help withthis. Peter Dykes, senior analyst, Networks atInforma Telecoms & Media, reminds us, theadvantages of real-time interaction withcustomers have seen more than one billingvendor repackaging part of its online-chargingoffering as a real-time-messaging system.

“In February 2009, Germany-based OrgaSystems launched its customer-communications platform, which is essentiallythe messaging module of the company'sonline-charging platform,” he says.

Orga Systems’ aim was to ensure customersknew they were approaching bandwidth usagecaps and enhance things like family tariffplans by letting a main post-paid accountholder know when prepaid account holdersneeded topping up.

“The idea of real-time control over anessentially prepaid account is, for the timebeing at least, garnering more attention thanthe ability to charge in real time,” says Dykes.

Operators aremetamorphosingas the blinkers come off

Bob Hockman:Improvinghandoverscould boostquality ofexperience

“The idea of real-time control overan essentiallyprepaid account is,for the time beingat least, garneringmore attentionthan the ability tocharge in real time”

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He notes other vendors who have reportedsimilar demands, recalling a conversation hehad with Highdeal, now owned by SAP, aboutusing real-time systems for purposes otherthan charging.

“I think what will really revolutionise CRM iswhen PCRF/EF really comes into its own onthe service offerings side. At present it ismainly being used for traffic management andas such, the amount of data required relatingto the BSS domain, access network and theend-user device is fairly limited,” adds Dykes.“Yet once things like on-the-fly cross-bundling,upselling and all that shiny shiny stuff getsgoing however, the need for far more granulardata will be that much greater and thereforeavailable to areas such as marketing andcustomer relationship management.”

Dykes thinks that two of the biggest benefitsto operators will be the to be the ability to takea more proactive approach to CRM with theavailability of real-time data, and the ability toautomate a far greater proportion of the CRMfunctions.

“Operators will have to be careful however,when deciding how much and which parts ofthe CRM process to automate in order to avoidreplicating some of the more negative aspectsof IVR systems,” he adds.

Patrick Booth, industry sales director at SAPUK and Ireland, feels marketing is increasinglybeing pulled by individual consumers ratherthan being pushed to a large group of people.“Organisations must focus on the types ofexperiences they want customers to haveduring every interaction,” he stresses.

Bob Hockman, vice president of productmarketing at Empirix, says that once CSPs areable to visualise the customer experience,they can strategically enhance it. “Rather thansimply over-provisioning and waiting fornetworks to clog, mobile providers can useservice assurance analytics to effectivelypinpoint infrastructure investments,” he says.

This could mean mapping of applications tonetwork resources to reveal choke-points thatdegrade quality, or where video is consistentlyperforming poorly in a specific area,optimising that portion of the network togenerate significant results.

“Validating communications events across

different pieces of the network will revealinteroperability issues. Simply improvinghandovers between different networkprotocols could significantly boost overallquality of experience,” he adds.

Neil Coleman, director of marketing, Actix,thinks that geo-located, real-time customerdata could be the game changer in terms ofCEM and CRM. Whether it comes from celltrace, probes or handset agents, he says, itprovides a real-time feed of how a customer isinteracting with the network, what servicesthey access and the quality of experience theyreceive.

“Geo-located customer experience dataenables operators to stop focusing on theirnetwork plumbing and to start focusing oncustomers, devices and locations,” saysColeman. “When combined with existingbilling, customer care trouble and marketingdata it becomes a powerful tool forunderstanding both customer experience andcustomer demand. CSPs can then makeinvestment, marketing and day to daymanagement decisions based around whatthe impact to the customer is rather than a setof dry abstract KPIs.”

Monica Zlotogorski, marketing manager ofOpenet, says that this personalisation,although essential for the future of operatorsseeking customer acquisition and retention, ismore a logical progression than a big-bangapproach.

In her mind the era of multi-yeartransformational strategies is over becauseCSPs simply cannot afford them anymore. Shebelieves personalisation sits around deployingnew technologies that insulate the traditionalback office from change to leverage those newinvestments and coordinate real-time businessrules across network access types.

“Centralised policy controls, chargingmechanisms, and subscriber datamanagement tools enable new business rulesto be rapidly deployed – by operators and,increasingly, through self care portals,” sheadds. “Tactical business initiatives, such aspersonalised subscriber controls, promotionaloffers, and even opt-in advertising, enableoperators to deliver increasingly morepersonalised options, evolving capabilitiestoward a strategic solution that delivers amore enhanced customer experience.”

Patrick Booth:Operators mustfocus on thetypes ofexperience theywant users tohave

Brian Carroll:Carriers adeptat attractingnew customers

“This personalisation,although essential for

the future ofoperators, is more ofa logical progression

than a big-bangapproach”

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

Mobile operators need new approaches to close the gap between what their networksreport and what their customers tell them, argues Neil Coleman

Over the last two to three years, we have seengrowing tensions between customer care andnetwork operations teams in mobile operators.Customer care agents find themselves handlingmore and more customer complaints at the sametime as the operations team report ‘all green’network status.

The problem withbeing network centricThis problem has its origins in the exponentialrise in mobile data, increased competition andindustry deregulation. The result of this meansthat operators now face a perfect storm ofincreasing network and device complexitycoupled with slowing revenue growth, risingsubscriber acquisition costs and a lack ofcustomer loyalty.

Operators have been investing in CustomerExperience Management (CEM) initiatives butthese systems, with their focus on high level endto end monitoring, lack the granular detail toenable them to address the real causes of theproblems especially in RAN that accounts for20% of all customer churn.

Mobile operators’ traditional approach forassuring customer experience has been networkcentric, with management, employees andoutsourcers being measured on their ability toimprove overall network KPIs. This networkcentric approach misses the voice of thecustomer. Operators lack hard data on the qualityof experience they deliver to key customersegments at critical locations and also don’t havedata on how their network supports the latestdevices. Being network centric also means thatoperators struggle to:

• focus sales and marketing campaigns where their network is a differentiator

• target investments in network infrastructure (macro, femto and Wi-Fi) to deliver maximum benefit to key customers

• prioritise in-house and outsourced resources on activities that have the greatest customer impact

Forget the network, focuson people and placesTo close the customer experience gap requiresoperators to become customer centric, shiftingtheir focus from network elements to people andplaces. Being customer centric means thatoperators should be able to answer fundamentalquestions like:• Where are my corporate customers when they’re

not in the office, are they dropping calls and is ita location, network or a device specific problem?

• Is my network capacity being consumed by rogue users or handsets?

• Are the problems being reported by my customers specific to one location, one handset type or one service?

To address these questions, operators need toinvest in customer experience optimisationsolutions. These systems compliment traditionalnetwork OSS and CEM systems by providinggranular customer experience data, geo-locatedand segmented by customer and handset type.These systems allow operators to follow acustomer centric approach by:• establishing customer experience KPIs to

prioritise customer impacting activities• allowing customer experience data to be used

to diagnose problems, target investment and design solutions

• enabling key processes to focus on improving customer experience KPIs.

The benefits of customer centricityTo illustrate the benefits of customer centricity,an operator we have been working with spent anumber of months trying to address an unusuallyhigh rate of dropped calls on a small cluster ofsectors. It initially took a network centric approach,adjusting network configuration without success.Taking a customer centric approach, focusing onpeople and places, it quickly saw the dropsoriginated at a bus station, where people, waitingfor their rides home used their smartphones.Unfortunately the bus station was underneath aconcrete railway bridge, meaning that changes tothe macro network had little effect and that alocal coverage solution was required.

How to close thecustomer experience gap

“Operators havebeen investing inCustomerExperienceManagement (CEM)initiatives but thesesystems, with theirfocus on high levelend to endmonitoring, lack thegranular detail toenable them toaddress the realcauses of theproblems”

Neil Coleman,director ofmarketing,Actix: It’s timeto take acustomercentricapproach

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE



UNIFIED APPLICATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

There are some brilliant tools on the market for fine tuning network performance. Butthey won’t work unless you carry out a ruthless decluttering, writes Nick Booth.

Some mobile apps can make you feel you’regetting old – you find yourself staring at thescreen trying to remember what you set out todo. Which isn’t great when the subscribers aregenerally young at heart – they’re fickle andwant instant gratification. So these ‘mobilemiddle-aged moments’ aren’t a great advertfor the network.

Mass defections could be fatal in the currentmarket, according to Marc Lippe, the directorof worldwide marketing at InfoVista, whosetools probe the service delivery chain and lookfor the blockages that are congesting thenetwork.

One of the problems for network operators isthe confusing number of tools on the market,says Lippe. Their proliferation makes the dutyof perfecting the end-user experience evenharder and more expensive.

“Most service assurance tools are designed totackle individual service monitoring, mobileinfrastructure monitoring or transportmonitoring, but never all three at once,” hesays.

Many of these tools are extremely limitedanyway, he says. What’s the point of amonitoring and measuring tools that only

Operators must tidy uptheir toolboxes to improveapplication performance

"


covers one domain of their infrastructure, heasks. It’s not as if IP/MPLS, mobile packet corenetwork, IP transport, backhaul, RadioNetwork or data centre activity are selfcontained units. Each has an impact on theother.

As so often happens, insularity has let thesoftware industry down again. Some softwareis tied to particular vendors and other cannothandle a variety of existing technologies. Allof these factors make it near impossible forservice providers to ensure end-to-end servicequality.

As a result, many service providers areconsolidating their IT and OSS tools. OneInfoVista customer had over 1,000 tools andrecently ditched 800 of them.

Despite the complexity of the task, serviceproviders need to find a solution fast, or theirsubscribers won’t ever be enticed into usingmore valuable services.

We have to speed up problem-solving, saysLippe, by identifying, analysing andtroubleshooting network issues andbandwidth-hogging apps before thecustomers are affected.

Similarly, service providers must have theability to prioritise and acceleratetroubleshooting with real-time collection andanalysis of key network performance andservice quality indicators from one end of theinfrastructure to the other – all on the lowbudget that is typically devoted to networkand service operational costs.

How? Mobile operators must consolidate andalign their support systems and processes.Adopt a unified service assurance approachand when this consolidation finally lets yousee the wood from the trees, you can getdown to addressing the next phase of theservice delivery challenge.

Standardise on one network and applicationperformance assurance platform, says Lippe,or your data services and applications willnever give each customer the performancetheir level of subscription merit.

All domains, vendors, technology types andservices, no matter how diverse, must beunified into one cohesive unit. Then you canstart monitoring and reporting on each point

of the infrastructure, from data center tomobile packet core, as if it was one organ.

“Understand the relationships betweenresources, the services they support and therespective performance indicators,” Lippeadvises service providers. Only then can youget to the root causes of service degradation.Hopefully before the customers notice.

Aricent uses SevOne’s management platformto fine tune Vodafone’s mobile network in theUK. At SevOne emphasis is on real timereporting and scalability, says Mike Miracle,SevOne’s SVP. The best way to ensure rapidresponse is to make the managementinformation clear to the people responsible.That hasn’t always been the case in thisindustry, says Miracle. “Proactive notificationand granular data is needed. But we try topresent the information as clearly as possibleand create well-understood baselines forresponse. Our system fires off alerts tonetwork ops teams and they will knowexactly what action they will need to take,” hesays.

With responsibility for service delivery sharedamong a number of different vendors, theblame game helps no one. When a problemexists, everyone should be held guilty untilthey can prove their systems are working.Then faults would be identified more rapidly.“We need to cut the mean time to innocence,”quips Miracle.

SevOne says it can answer the questionsservice providers need to know: How utilisedwere the links between remote and homeoffices? Did they get the bandwidth the carrierpromised? Did the server respond in theallotted period of time? Did the applicationrespond in the parameters that wereestablished? Did the routers pass the packetswithin the acceptable ranges for latency andjitter?

Meanwhile the customer doesn’t know or careif a problem is caused by the device,application, the network or the content. Allthey know is they can’t update Facebook.Another solution provider, Compuware,claims its intelligence is gathered from allpoints of the service delivery chain and canpinpoint the problem and by looking at theflows of data. “Every bite tells a story,” saysRichard Stone, senior manager of mobilesolutions at Compuware.

Mike Miracle:Operators needto cut the meantime toinnocence

“When a problemexists, everyoneshould be held guiltyuntil they can provetheir systems areworking. Then faultswould be identifiedmore rapidly. Weneed to cut themean time toinnocence”


Whether it’s reliable, uninterrupted voice connectivity, or real-time access to contentand data, smartphone and wireless PC users expect the utmost quality from theirmobile operators. This is why ensuring high-quality, always available wireless voice anddata services from one end of the network to the other – and back again – is a must,writes Marc Lippe.

With every dropped call, dropped packet,instance of jitter or failed download, a mobileservice provider risks losing subscribers andhigh-value business customers to thecompetition. But delivering that level ofunquestionable, end-to-end service quality iseasier said than done due to the complexity andcost of managing today’s mobile datainfrastructure and the explosion of data trafficcrossing it. An inundated router, a downed line ora crashed server can leave hundreds orthousands of subscribers without service, whileleaving the service provider vulnerable todisgruntled customers, churn and lost revenue.

For these reasons, mobile operators must beable to quickly identify network trouble spots andthe effect of bandwidth-hogging applications—before customers are impacted. They must do soin an increasingly complex delivery environmentthat consists of data centre, IP/MPLS, Ethernetbackhaul mobile packet core, legacy voice core,mixed-generation RAN and 4G technologies—from multiple equipment vendors, while keepingnetwork and service operations costs as low aspossible.

To overcome these critical performance, qualityand cost concerns, mobile service providersmust adopt a unified application and networkperformance assurance approach that will enablethem to address the underlying challenges ofmobile data service delivery, the management ofthe IP transport architecture and the proliferationof service assurance tools. A key aspect oftenoverlooked is that the actual transport of thatdata is done by the underlying IP wirelineinfrastructure rather than the wireless networkfacilities. By bringing together the quality ofexperience (QoE) perspectives from these twodomains, providers can comprehensively assureend-to-end quality.

Mobile data servicedelivery challengesData services represent mobile service providers’fastest growing revenue stream, accounting forup to 50% of growth compared with the fairly flatrevenue growth from voice services.Simultaneously, the rapidly growing volume ofbandwidth-intensive mobile data traffic hasmade it difficult for operators to ensure qualityand availability on these data services. Serviceproviders must be able to:• Differentiate themselves from competitors by

assuring a quality end-user experience on data services and applications

• Build trust with and retain high-value business customers, especially where service-level agreements are critical

• Hold third-party application providers and internet service providers accountable for the quality of the applications travelling over the network

All-IP transportarchitecture challengesThe data traffic explosion has led operators toincreasingly recognise the importance ofIP/Ethernet technology as a cost-effectivetransport medium and place a significant amount ofemphasis, effort and investment on the transportnetwork as a network asset. This is best seen inthe mobile backhaul domain where many mobileoperators are using or deploying Carrier Ethernet.

The all-IP network infrastructure provides theease of deployment and bandwidth to deliverboth packet-based voice and data services over acommon transport backbone while reducing theoperators’ growing infrastructure costs. But withthe dawning of this all-IP network infrastructure,a host of management challenges have emerged.These include:• Providing the same quality of service/quality

"

End-to-end mobile service quality:From data centreto cell tower

Marc Lippe:director ofworldwidecorporate andfield marketingat InfoVista


U N I F I E D P E R F O R M A N C E A S S U R A N C E

of experience that users are accustomed to receiving over legacy transport network technologies

• Equipping transport engineering and operations groups with the same level of operational and engineering capabilities they had with TDM

• Meeting the bandwidth demands of mobile data and application users without oversizing and overspending on network infrastructure

• Monitoring performance and capacity across the entire mobile network infrastructure, including the backhaul network, regardless of its multi-generation, multi-vendor, multi-domain composition

The challenge of proliferatingservice assurance toolsThe majority of today’s service assurance toolsare designed to tackle either per-subscriberservice monitoring, mobile infrastructuremonitoring or transport monitoring, but not allthree at once. This has resulted in a proliferationof tools and made assuring the end-userexperience an increasingly difficult andexpensive proposition. Hence, IT departmentshave struggled to:• Manage down both capital and operational

expenses• Employ a single, vendor-agnostic toolset that

can address both service and network management requirements, including transport monitoring, from end to end.

Delivering high-performancemobile data servicesMobile service providers need to be equippedwith the reporting capabilities they need to offerservice level guarantees. For mobile serviceproviders, the biggest market is the consumermarket, and ensuring that services are alwaysavailable and meet end-user quality expectationsis critical to avoiding churn. But as business fromwireless VPNs and machine-to-machine (M2M)offerings increase, mobile operators must alsoprotect their high-value enterprise accounts bydelivering the level of service these corporatecustomers are paying for and by providing theircustomers with customised dashboardsdepicting such compliance.

On the other side of the coin, mobile operatorshave an obligation to their subscribers to ensurethat contracted application partners aredelivering content of the highest quality.Subscribers look to their mobile provider totroubleshoot and deal with quality issues, even ifthe problem originates from a third-party contentprovider. Further complicating quality assuranceis that the infrastructure between the mobile

operator and its third-party content providers istypically a leased ISP connection that theoperator has no control over. Application deeppacket inspection (DPI) offerings will help mobileoperators remotely monitor the performance ofapplications coming from content partners, aswell as further sectionalise the views into TCPdelays and actual application response delays.Mobile service providers will then be able todistinguish between ISP connectivity issues andpoor remote-application performance.

A single, integrated network, service andapplication service assurance solution will allowservice providers’ IT departments to manageend-to-end mobile network and service quality inreal time and assure the performance of dataservices and applications on a per subscriberbasis, without the cost and delays associatedwith having to jump between OSS toolsets.Monitoring and reporting of every infrastructureentity along the service delivery path, from datacentre to mobile packet core, to the IP/MPLSbackbone, radio access network and the Ethernetbackhaul, will dispense with the siloed approachof tools that can report on either network orservice performance only.

A unified service assurance solution is also todeliver direct business benefits, such asproviding insight into new service opportunities,with a view into the types of applications eachsubscriber is using by offering DPI between theSGSN and GGSN nodes and in the data centre.This enables the service provider to not onlymore readily pinpoint problems but alsounderstand subscriber activity and preferences.Thus, if the operator identifies a high level ofrequests for a specific application coming fromthe student area of a particular city, it can followup by tailoring a product it can market to thatsegment and demographic.

With this comprehensive and actionable visibilityinto the health of the network infrastructure andthe services and applications traversing it,engineers and operations personnel canproactively ensure availability and consistentperformance on the growing scope ofbandwidth-hungry applications and services theydeliver to customers, wherever those users maybe. By immediately understanding therelationships between resources, the servicesthey support and the respective performanceindicators, they will be able proactively identifyand focus on the network root causes of servicedegradation before customers are negativelyimpacted, dedicate bandwidth, and analyse andprioritise application traffic in a way that ensuresa quality end-user experience.

“The majority oftoday’s serviceassurance tools aredesigned to tackleeither per-subscriber servicemonitoring, mobileinfrastructuremonitoring ortransportmonitoring, but notall three at once”


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S P E C I A L R E P O R T P R E V I E W

Over the past few years, the penetration rate of smartphoneshas led to the belief that these devices would deliver higherARPUs, greater profit margins and increased customerretention. To some extent, this has come true with mobiledata revenues set to climb to US$314 billion this year, a22.5% increase over 2010 and reaching US$552 billion by2015, according to one market research firm(*), boosted bysubscribers' ongoing appetite for smartphones and tablets.

Tango Telecomlooks beyond policy

However, the proliferation of these smart devicesbrings challenges for the operator: smartphonedriven costs are rising faster than ARPUs,margins are growing ever tighter and the gaphas widened between capacity expenditure forfuture growth and data revenue growth. Bothvoice and messaging are commoditised servicesand their overall revenue contribution isdeclining due to bundles and the up-take of OTTvoice/messaging services.

This has prompted operators to review theirmobile data strategy and the way they conducttheir businesses. Operators are looking to tiereddata plans as a way of offsetting the high cost ofsmartphone subsidies and of controlling datausage. In North America alone, most operatorsare offering some combination of data caps andthrottled speeds. This re-evaluation of businessmodels and tariff strategies is set to continue,resulting in innovative approaches to dataservice charging, tightly coupled withmechanisms which control usage.

Taking such innovative approaches to monetisedata services and harness associated revenuesthrough the implementation of tightly integratedpolicy, charging and dynamic self-care solutionswill be an important cornerstone for operators asthey strive to ensure their place in the evolvingcommunication value chain.

The policy management market is still amaturing one, where early implementationstended to be more network and/or pain pointspecific (P2P etc). Current implementations arealso relatively static, simply controlling whichservices are accessible to which customers basedon their susbcribed plan. Operators areincreasingly looking to policy control capabilitiesto deliver innovative services, based on abroader set of on-demand offerings, morecustomer self-service choices, and more flexibleand dynamic pricing models based around cell

load and yield management inputs. These newservices will drive interest in integrated policyand charging solutions, particularly in emergingmarkets that are primarily prepaid. As applicationbandwidth requirements continue to rise,operators are looking for better ways to monetisetheir existing capabilities, making one-size-fits-allpricing an unappealing option. By integratingpolicy control with charging, operators can offerintelligent pricing models, such as upsellingtemporary bandwidth prioritisation (turbo boost)to meet specific application requirements andencouraging data usage when cell load is lowthrough discounts and promotions.

For example, we can look at the case of twoindividuals subscribed to the same operatorwaiting for the train home from work duringevening rush hour. Both have the samesmartphone and are subscribed to the same dataplan. They will have the same experience whenthey connect, which is the best that their operatorcan provide at that time.. Where things change iswhat they want to do with their smartphones overthe next hour or so. One wants to check e-mail,update facebook, play a game and check out acouple of apps. The other is interested in watchinga streaming HD movie, or perhaps downloading amovie to view on the train journey home. Clearly,one is asking a lot more of the network over thenext hour than the other and the operator also hasto consider the data users in the same cell duringthis busy commuting hour. The ability to up-selltemporary bandwidth prioritisation (turbo boost)on the fly or to offer a discount for deferred usageduring location specific quiet periods will be animportant part of this operator’s integrated policyand charging management strategy.

The challenge for operators is to truly monetisetheir network by creating a flexible and dynamicmarketplace which maximises revenue whileoptimising the individual subscriber’s experience.This is the Holy Grail for operators.

(*)Gartner report "Forecast:Mobile Data Traffic andRevenue, Worldwide, 2010-2015"

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W E B I N A R P R E V I E W

As mobile data consumption continues its exponential upward trajectory, it is not aquestion of IF but of WHAT type of policy management solutions are needed. Videotraffic, the greatest bandwidth consumer, is doubling every 12 months and willexceed 60% of total data traffic by the end of 2014. Furthermore, OvumResearch predicts that over one billion people will use by then mobile broadbandinternet as their sole means of broadband access. Ian Tidder, CEO, Computarisexplores the issues.

To learn more about "Strategic drivers for early to market policy" then why not attend aFREE webinar hosted by VanillaPlus and presented by Computaris on:Date: 29th September 2011Time: London 14.00pmChairman: George Malim, VanillaPlus EditorSpeakers: Corina Bulucea, Computaris Marketing and Alliances DirectorTopic: “Strategic drivers for early to market policy”Analyst: OvumRegister FREE today at www.vanillaplus.com

Such an increase in data usage has a seriousimpact on every operators’ business as theycannot afford to let traffic flood their networkswithout ensuring that sustainable new revenuestreams follow. The solution is to controlbandwidth at customer level and monetise it byreal-time integration with available customerdata and BSS elements, enabling improvedcustomer service.

Moreover, as over-the-top (OTT) providers arealready disrupting the communication landscapewith myriad bandwidth-intensive applicationsand content, operators strive to exploit efficientlythese opportunities without additionalinfrastructure investment and to create a mutually-beneficial value proposition for all partiesinvolved: content providers, operators and users.

Enhance traffic monetisationPolicy encompasses traffic management andshaping, QoS enforcement and congestioncontrol. Ideally a policy management solutionshould allow all these functions to beimplemented gradually as needs arise. Policyrules, such as access control, bandwidthallocation, fair usage and traffic prioritisation,bring many benefits for both subscribers andoperators: subscribers can easily control theirusage of mobile data; operators can optimiseexisting network resources, increasetransparency and visibility of subscribers’ usagebehaviour and properly manage and monetisethird party content and applications. Existing policy management solutions solvenetwork congestion issues but are still broadlynetwork-centric, revolving around imposing capsand limits to increase transparency. This maysupport increased consumption but does notnecessarily generate new revenue streams. Tomonetise mobile data traffic better, operatorsmust evolve towards subscriber-centricbandwidth management that provides the much-needed interactivity in real-time so that customerscan enjoy their mobile experience freely.

Maximise mobile data opportunity –quality counters churnStatistics show very clearly that managingcontent usage patterns should be a priority for alloperators: 65% of mobile data traffic is usuallygenerated by 10% of users. Therefore operatorsmust strive to address each customer segmentbetter, to increase their satisfaction and QoS andto enable a higher level of personalisation anduser control. There are several options available -from enabling advanced self-care functionalitiesto encouraging usage at off-peak hours, offeringlimited-time discounted price downloadpromotions or other sophisticatedapplication/data packages.

Policy management solution ofchoice – fine-tuned tiered servicerevenue modelWhen considering what type of policy solution ismost suitable, it is imperative to keep in mind thegrowth trajectory projected for mobilebroadband. To future proof it, the solution needsto be highly scalable and adaptable to evolvingbusiness needs. Also, it should have anestablished roadmap and evolution path towards4G/LTE. Further recommendations would be tochoose a subscriber-centric, full 3GPP-compliantsolution, independent of the networkinfrastructure.

To assure tomorrow’s success and to beprepared for the avalanche of new services andapplications that are expected to come, operatorsshould not procrastinate any further: they shouldimplement this kind of policy managementsolution and create harmonious synergiesbetween it and a real-time convergent chargingsolution. This will enable them to become activeparticipants in the VAS value chain, by easilyenabling and charging OTT services and byapplying value-based service pricing strategies.Supported by such an infrastructure, operatorswill better adapt to changes and exploit allopportunities from the communications market.

Strategic drivers for earlyto market mobile data policy

Ian Tidder

V I D E O R E V I E W

Telecom operators poised to tapmarket potential in M2M, Cloud andEnterprise Mobility services andleverage their expertise in businessmodel transformation by deliveringthese capabilities as a service.

Last month Fergus O’Reilly, Chief Solution Expert atSAP Consume to Cash and Dan Baker, ResearchDirector of Technology Research Institute, satdown to discuss how telecom operators can beexemplary of business transformation across manydifferent industries and even profit by helping otherindustries transform.Fergus O’Reilly, Chief

Solution Expert at SAP

During his talk, Fergus took a closer look athow telecom operators are beginning torealize the large untapped market potential inM2M, Cloud and Enterprise Mobility servicesand are now in a prime position to leveragetheir experience and expertise in businessmodel transformation by delivering thesecapabilities as a service to other industries.

Although charging, billing, paymentcollections and revenue sharing for servicesdelivered to mass volumes of customers arebusiness processes which have long beenapplied by telecom operators, now we seemany traditional product-based manufacturersalso starting to offer value-added connectedservices. In today’s hyper-connected world,smart devices such as smartphones, tablets,connected cars, office equipment, industrialmachinery and consumer electronics nowcome with Internet connectivity. This allowsmanufacturers to deliver and charge for

services directly to the end customer and overthe entire life cycle of the product. This is oftencalled the move into “XaaS” or “anything as aservice.” So selling a product is no longer justa single revenue opportunity, instead it opensthe door to recurring subscriptions and usage-based revenues over time.

As Fergus highlights, SAP has a longexperience in helping companies transformthemselves and their industries. Theyunderstand when industries and businessmodels transform then change needs tohappen in people, processes and IT systems.As we learn here, their broad-based valuemanagement program – including theConsume to Cash set of business processes –can help customers structure and sequencetheir transformation and scale for the highvolume of transactions generated by thesenew services, delivering incremental value ateach step.


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D I A R Y

V I D E O R E V I E W

Upcoming EventsPolicy Management & Control12-14 September, 2011 Berlin, Germanywww.iir-telecoms.com/event/ policymanagement

M2M Evolution Conference13-15 September, 2011 Austin, Texas, USAhttp://m2m.tmcnet.com//conference/west-11/

Interconnect & Termination Rates19-22 September, 2011 Vienna, Austriawww.interconnectionevent.com

Number Portability19-21 September, 2011 Madrid, Spainwww.iir-telecoms/event/np

Cloud Mobility Summit20-21 September, 2011 Amsterdam, Netherlandswww.gsacom.com/events/event _331.php4

Management World Africa 201120-21 September, 2011 Johannesburg, South Africawww.tmforum.org/ManagementWorldAfrica/8617/home.html

SDP Global Summit20-22 September, 2011 Berlin, Germanywww.sdpsummit.com

Customer Experience Management in Telecoms26-29 September, 2011 Budapest, Hungarywww.iqpc.com/Event.aspx?id= 501164Broadband World Forum

27-29 September, 2011 Paris, Francewww.broadbandworldforum.com

Carriers Ethernet World27-29 September, 2011 London, UKwww.terrapinn.com/2011/carriers-ethernet-world/

CTIA Enterprise & Applicationsand M2M @ CTIA11-13 October, 2011 San Diego, California, USAwww.ctiaenterpriseandapplic ations.comwww.m2mzone.com/events. fall11.asp

SDM & Data Warehousing11-12 October, 2011www.informatandm.com

Mobile Video Industry Summit18-19 October, 2011 London, UKhttp://mobile-videosummit.com

Mobile Apps and Devices19 October, 2011 London, UKwww.butlergroup.com

Comarch User Group4-5 November, 2011 Brussels, Belgiumhttp://usergroup.comarch.com

Global Enterprise Mobility Forum16-17 November, 2011 London, UKwww.ebcg.biz/ebcg-business-events/18/global-enterprise-mobility-forum/


In a recent VanillaPlus interview, Sudeesh Yezhuvath, Chief Operating Officer ofSubex, shared his views on the telecoms industry and how Subex helps CSPsachieve profitable growth through operational control.

Actionable intelligence –growth through control

The need for actionable intelligence is importantthese days because of the evolution that thetelecoms world is going through. It was a veryhigh growth industry in its initial days, as is thecase with most industries, and now it ismaturing. Today, operators need intelligence onwhich they can move quickly and fix anyproblem that may arise and that is whyactionable intelligence is critical.

The way we read the telecoms world today isthat operators want assured outcomes becausethat reduces risk and risk represents cost. This isthe primary reason why operators ask formanaged services options. We offer the fullgamut of managed services and we can workwith operators in any type of engagement modelthey prefer. We can even outsource their entireoperations, if need be, in domains related to us.

For operators, rolling out new services quickly

and accurately the first time around is of extremebusiness importance because that helps them toreduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.Our contribution to this is our RevenueOperations Center offering. It has the ability togather data from numerous large systems, churnthrough all that huge volume of data and spotany discrepancies. If there are any discrepancies,we also help the operator fix them.

As a company we have had our share of difficulttimes but we have overcome that. That has beenpossible because we were always focused oncustomer satisfaction. We have observedchanging market dynamics and we understandour customers’ needs. As far as the industry isconcerned, we will continue to see mergers &acquisitions and consolidation. Subex willcontinue to lead this as we have done in the past.We expect to be one of the leaders of theconsolidation phase in our industry.

SudeeshYezhuvath

Watch the video at:www.vanillaplus.com/videolibrary/subex_achieving_growth_through_operational_control


C L O C K I N G O F F !

It wouldn’t be a normal month here atVanillaPlus without a carrier beingcriticised in some way for a lackof concern when it comes toits customers. This timearound it’s Talk Talkthat gets thecustomary slaparound theface – in the form of a rather annoying fine for£3m from Ofcom.

TalkTalk consistentlybad if nothing else

The crime? Billing thousands, well 65,000 to beprecise, of its customers for services they did notreceive. You can’t fault Talk Talk for consistencythough. It continued to charge customers evenafter an initial telling off by the regulator.

Back in November, it had first been hauled overthe coals following complaints from more than1,000 customers. Yet despite Ofcom revealingthis and waving a very pointed finger – thinkWicked Witch of the West and you’re halfwaythere, TalkTalk and it’s subsidiary Tiscali, playfullycontinued to bill nearly 3,000 customers wronglyin the months that followed.

While the regulator acknowledged that bothTalkTalk and Tiscali UK had taken some importantsteps to comply with the rules, by makingchanges to customer records managementsystems, it fined the ISPs despite them havingpaid some £2.5m back to customers in the formof refunds and goodwill payments.

While the level of the penalty was said to reflectthe ‘seriousness of their breach of the rules’ andtake into account steps already taken tocompensate customers and change its modusoperandi, it’s unlikely to bother TalkTalk too muchconsidering Ofcom could have fined it 10%percent of its turnover.

Last year the company posted a five-foldincrease in pre-tax profits of £57m since itsdemerger from Carphone Warehouse, withrevenues totalling £1.8bn. When you consider italso saw a rise in profits of £11m as a result ofthe integration of Tiscali, TalkTalk can consideritself lucky – unlike its customers and non-customers.

There’s been a lot of comment about how Ofcomhas shown its teeth with the £3m fine. That’s trueif the 65,000 customers where overcharged by asingle pound each but what if the errors were

larger and went for a long period? An over-charge of £10 for each per month for a yearwould total £7.8m – far in excess of the £2.5TalkTalk compensated its customers and the £3mfor the fine. Perhaps, rather than the watchdogshowing its’ teeth TalkTalk was more on thereceiving end of a gentle nibble.

If you were thinking this little tale ended thereyou’d be wrong, there’s one more epic TalkTalk fail.

This time the ISP has infuriated hundreds of localresidents in Dumbarton, Scotland by committinga billing error – at least it’s consistent – thatresulted in a local charity having its broadbandconnection cut off. The Gorsilaure Project, whichruns an orphanage in the Democratic Republic ofCongo, had its service suspended for non-payment of a large invoice, which, you’veguessed it, turns out to be another mistake.

In its defence, TalkTalk has already offered £100in compensation but this has been rejected out ofhand by Sister Margaret Rose Scullion runningthe project, who believes lives at the Africanorphanage have been put at risk from the ISPsmistake.

Now, hundreds of locals have joined in the fightand passed concerns on to their local MP insupport of the Sister who was given inaccurateinformation when signing up for the connectionwith TalkTalk.

With poor service – Ofcom says it’s the mostcomplained about company in the telecomssector – and in danger of being labelled a moneygrabbing joker, perhaps its about time the PRmachine jumped in to save TalkTalk from itselfand grab some headlines for the right reasons.After all, many VanillaPlus readers are able to sellthem a highly scalable billing and customer caresystem for substantially less than the cost of thefines and reputational damage it is accruing.

The authorMark Dye, isassociate editorof VanillaPlus.

Back inNovember, it hadfirst been hauled

over the coalsfollowing

complaints frommore than 1,000

customers.

PLUS!

TALKINGHEADSTALKINGHEADSPolicy and chargingconvergence bringsdata monetisationclarity, says Amdocs'Guy Hilton

Have you mastered the dance steps needed for enterprise communications? • Charging, policy and pricing • Let's get ready for LTE • Will operators walk the billing as a service walk or just talk the talk?

B I L L I N G & C H A R G I N G F O R T H E N E W G E N E R AT I O N O F C S P S E R V I C E S

!

BILLING & CHARGINGSUPPLEMENT

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2011VOLUME 13 ISSUE 4

HYBRID BILLINGHYBRID BILLINGThe best means of approachor the worst compromise

BILLING FOR MNCsBILLING FOR MNCsCan carriers meetintricate cross-borderrequirements

OPERATORINTERVIEW:OPERATORINTERVIEW:Orange BusinessServices UK chiefsays complexbilling increasesretention

Just a few years ago billing was being looked upon asa boring topic. The thinking went that there wasn’tmuch innovation and so much exciting other activitywas occurring as operators fought to gain a share ofthe mobile content market. The news is billing is back– and in a big way.

Now almost universally referred to as Billing & Charging, ittakes account of the need to monetise far more than regularvoice and data traffic. Critically, it’s also something that

operators are uniquely good at. They can enable charging at great scale andprovide great accuracy to the mass-market vendors of consumer content andapplications. Their capability to do this sets them apart and the flexibility they canoffer also makes them fundamental to the delivery of complex service bundlessuch as those for multinationals and those in the cloud computing market.

Of course, operators continue to bill for themselves to their own customer bases.As Nick Booth points out on pS8 operators are innovating. Hybrid billing is beingseen as a way to enable operators to educate prepaid users towards buyingpostpaid experiences.

Perhaps the greatest turnaround in attitudes to billing lies in what it can enablefor large, international businesses – or MNCs. Billing, or at least adjunct systemsthat extract usable data from existing billing systems, enables operators to makeregion-wide or even global offers to MNCs. That’s exciting because instead ofwinning business in a single western European market, an operator can take 14European countries and enter markets in the Middle East or North Africa. AsMatt Hooper points out on pS14, there are risks attendant to that. On the onehand it’s a great opportunity to win this premium class of business across multiplecountries. On the other, it’s a fine chance to lose business in your domesticmarket. Only by being demonstrably better will operators win.

To do so they must have the agility to respond to the complex and varyingdemands of this customer base, instantly and effectively.

The consumer world mirrors this demanding nature. Users don’t wantmeaningless policy-originated caps imposed. They don’t want to be throttled andthey want to buy services in a meaningful way. Yes, I’ll take five HD movies for afixed sum per month. No, I don’t know if I want to pay for a 5GB data package.Consumers want to receive rich service propositions in a language theyunderstand and they want to be billed or charged for them in a transparent,recognisable way. Users don’t want to get their calculator out to determine justhow many megabytes they’ve consumed, but some will if operators persist inbilling them in this archaic way.

Billing & Charging is back on the agenda because it has now become relevantagain. It underpins the business models of the new wave of services coming tomarket. Operators, because they know how to do this effectively, have manyreasons to be cheerful.

Enjoy the supplement, there’s no charge.

George Malim

S3VANILLAPLUS SUPPLEMENT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011

C O N T E N T S

S3 Introduction and Contents

S4 Billing News

S5 Talking HeadsGuy Hilton, product marketing director, Amdocs

S8 Hybrid BillingNick Booth explores how hybrid billing educatesprepaid users to postpaid behaviour

S10 Dancing with theenterprise stars

Monica Ricci says large enterprises represent apromising new dancing partner for operators

S12 Real-time charging delivers real revenue

Jaco Foure explains how real-time chargingenables the two-sided business models thatcustomer require

S14 Billing for MNCsGeorge Malim says the market’s massive but soare its demands

S16 Pricing and Policy ControlMiguel Carrero argues that linking charging topolicy will win customers’ hearts, minds andmoney

S18 Operator Interview:Mark Kenealy

Orange Business Services UK and Irelandcountry manager explains the importance ofbilling to his operations

PUBLISHED BYPrestige Media Ltd.

Suite 28, 30 Churchill Square, Kings Hill,West Malling, Kent ME19 4YU, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1732 844017 © Prestige Media Ltd 2011

S U P P L E M E N T C O N T E N T S

Guy Hilton,Amdocs

TALKINGHEADS

S5

BILLINGFOR MNCSS14

George Malim,Editor: VanillaPlus

Billing charges back fromthe brink of boredom

Amdocs is the market leader incustomer experience systemsinnovation. The company combinesbusiness and operational support

systems, service delivery platforms, proven services, and deep industryexpertise to enable service providers and their customers to do more in theconnected world. Amdocs' offerings help service providers explore newbusiness models, differentiate through personalised customer experiences,and streamline operations. Amdocs has over 19,000 employees and servescustomers in more than 60 countries worldwide. For more information,visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.

Zuora, a subscription billing andcommerce systems provider hasannounced that Elevate, a digitalservices provider with an array of IP andwireless residential services, is usingZuora’s subscription commerceplatform to roll out subscriptionservices across the US, Canada andPuerto Rico.

Elevate offers hundreds ofconfigurations of residential servicestailored to the needs of each individualresidential customer, includingbroadband service up to 10Mbps; IP-based TV and satellite TV serviceoffered in cooperation with DirecTV andDISH Network; mobile and digital phoneservices; and a fully integrated suite ofhome security and automation services.

Elevate selected the Zuora forCommunications cloud-based billingand subscription management platformand was able to implement in just 60days. The company can now roll out a

new range of services offerings on-the-fly, enabling its business strategy andcompetitive differentiation, whilehelping the company scale itsoperations rapidly. Elevate hasaggressive expansion plans to providemarket coverage for more than 100,000households in 22 markets by the end of2012. To do so, Elevate is opening twoto three offices every six to ten weeks.

“Our business is based on theproposition of giving our customersexactly what they need for the bestpossible value, rather than limitingthem to inflexible, impersonal servicethat many of us have come to expectfrom legacy service providers,” saidBryan Ferre, chief marketing officer,Elevate. "From the beginning, Zuorawas part of our launch plans because ofthe clear competitive advantage it givesElevate. If I want to launch 20 newproducts or packages tomorrow, I can.Our competitors with older on-premisetechnology simply cannot keep pace."

B I L L I N G N E W S

FTS has been chosen bya Western Europeancontent provider toimplement its LeapBilling, a comprehensiveend-to-end billing andcustomer care solution.

The service provideroffers innovativecontent servicescombining Video onDemand (VoD) andMachine-to-Machine

(M2M) communications. It needed abilling partner that is able tosuccessfully support these new servicesas well as offer state-of-the-art billingsolutions. By implementing FTS’ LeapBilling the service provider is now ableto bill effectively for its content andprovide a superior experience tocustomers, thus enabling it to moreeffectively monetise its network traffic.

The implementation includes thesystem’s charging, billing, vouchermanagement and customermanagement platforms. Leap Billingwill enable the content provider todevelop new revenue opportunities viaenhanced customer service and support.

“We are delighted to be working withthis innovative service provider. Byselecting Leap Billing, this provider hasrecognised FTS’ expertise in advancedcontent billing projects,” said AmosSivan, CEO, FTS. “In addition to the newVoD services they are able to offer, LeapBilling allows new business practices tobe instantly implemented and newservices, bundles and promotions to berolled out immediately, withoutinvolving costly billing integrationprojects. Thanks to Leap Billing, billingis no longer the traditional bottleneckfor launching new services for ourcustomers.”

Amos Sivan,CEO, FTS

Elevate deploys Zuora cloud-based billing toexpand services to 100,000 householdsMACH sees interconnect

billing demand grow asoperators sign up toWholesale Service Bureau

MACH has announced that seven newoperators intend to outsource theirinterconnect billing and settlementfunctions to MACH’s WholesaleService Bureau, indicating wideninginterest in its SaaS-based approach tokey partner management functions.The operators, based in Africa andEurope, will benefit from improvedcost containment and management oftheir wholesale interconnect marginsas a result of outsourcing to theWholesale Service Bureau.

With the advent of new IP-basedservices and the intensification ofwholesale competition, the traditionalenvironment of voice interconnectionis changing. While interconnectbilling can typically generate between30% and 60% of overall revenues forsome wireline and wireless operators,it can also account for up to 30% ofoperating costs. As operators look toreduce the cost of ownershipinvolved in maintaining in-houseinterconnect billing solutions, SaaSbased solutions are lookingincreasingly attractive.

“The nature of traditionalinterconnect billing, roaming andpartner settlement is changing fastand we are seeing increasing interestfrom operators in Asia and Centraland Latin America for our outsourcedinterconnect billing and partnermanagement solution,” said RichGrohol, chief commercial officer ofMACH. “Africa and Europe are reallyleading the way at the moment, asoperators in these regions look tobenefit from the cost benefits andreduced complexity associated withthis SaaS approach to interconnectbilling. It is both logical and sensibleto consider a managed serviceenvironment as the future forinterconnect billing and partnermanagement, in much the same wayas this model has been consideredthe standard for the management ofroaming traffic for many years.”

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUS SUPPLEMENTAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011S4

FTS wins Western European content and M2Mbilling deal with Leap system



Flat rate data didn’t work, all you can eatbloated the consumer and starved theoperator of revenue, and throttles, capsand additional charges have resulted inconfusion and inefficiency. A new directionin data monetisation is required. GuyHilton, director of product marketing forRevenue Management at Amdocs, tellsVanillaPlus how the convergence of policymanagement and charging brings clarity tothe market and has the potential to makesense of CSPs network infrastructureinvestments.

VanillaPlus: Communication serviceproviders (CSPs) are moving fromunlimited packages in order to bettermonetise the data traffic they carry. Cap,charge or throttle: What do you thinkwill be most successful?

Guy Hilton: There’s a general consensus thatunlimited data is not a sustainable businessmodel in the long term. A lot of investment isgoing into network expansion or upgrades to4G and LTE and unlimited plans don’t giveoperators an opportunity to make a return oninvestment easily or at all. Operators arepursuing a range of strategies to shift awayfrom unlimited data and it’s important to

recognise that today data isn’t truly unlimited.In the US, for example, Sprint caps data at5GB. Dan Hesse, the company’s chiefexecutive, has been open about how he isapproaching the market and commented thathe had not ruled out metered pricing lastOctober. Others take different approaches. T-Mobile USA throttles data speed down toEDGE or 2G levels – 100kbps or less – ifcustomers exceed their allotted cap.Customers are notified via a free text messagewhen they breach their monthly threshold andwill be able to change their data plan. AT&Tand Verizon Wireless offer tiered data pricing.That involves charging users based on theamount of data use. Verizon is to offer family

Policy and chargingconvergence brings datamonetisation clarity

"

VANILLAPLUS SUPPLEMENT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2011S6

data plans supporting multiple devicesincluding smartphones and tablets that enablefamilies to pool data entitlements so, in afamily, data allowances can be shared acrossthe users. Other operators simply offer tieredpricing based on volume, speed or acombination of the two.

Regardless of the approach taken and thestrategy chosen, one of the major challengesthat needs to be overcome to be trulysuccessful when instituting caps, charging orthrottling back on speed, is to hand greatervisibility and control to the end user. Endusers are not technically savvy and industryterms are not necessarily clear to them.Metrics such as 20Mbps or 2GB are broadlyunfamiliar and users will want to be sure theyare receiving what they paid for (especially ina speed based pricing model).

From a subscriber perspective, pricing needsto be intuitive and simple to understand yetvery advanced in the technology in the backoffice. To improve the customer experienceand enable fast time to market we need tohave charging and policy managementworking together. Policy management willgive you a controlled network but notnecessarily a profitable one.

VP: In what way do you believe CSPs canexploit the information available at thenetwork level to offer moresophisticated pricing schemes?

GH: CSPs around the world alreadyunderstand the need for policy and chargingto be integrated in order to address the newworld of data and the experiences customersdemand. Now they can integrate informationthat resides in the network with subscriberdata that typically resides in charging systemsand enable the creation of new types of dataplans.

For instance, policy management applied at anetwork level enables quota tracking, the

management of congestion and the optimisedrouting of traffic. Typical use cases for policymanagement include enforcing fair usagepolicies, enabling congestion aware trafficshaping and traffic prioritisation. Those enablean operator to allow a user to access video atan off-peak time but to throttle back on videoconsumption in a train station during rushhour, for example. Equally, prime customers,such as enterprise employees or those thatpay for a higher quality of service can beprioritised.

Integrated charging and policy which hasnetwork and subscriber based informationcoupled together enables CSPs to do more. Itenables the context to be extracted frommultiple networks to obtain network state,location and actual QoS with the BSSsubscriber profile, usage pattern, monetarymetering and product definition. That ties thecustomer profile and their entitlements to theservice being delivered. Typical use caseswould be: tiered services, data bundles,shared wallets and the enablement of datatransparency. Those capabilities enable CSPsto support limitation based on data type sopeer-to-peer or video traffic can be singled outto be throttled. They also enable packages tobe split between family members, limitationsto be based on content type and plans forpeak and off-peak hours.

VP: Most current systems don’t supportthe complexity of data monetisationrequirements; have billing vendorsrecognised this trend emerging?

GH: Combining charging and policy opens thedoors to a whole new world of monetisationscenarios, but there is a need to close acapability gap. Most attempts to integrateexisting charging and policy assets have notbeen very successful as these involved highlevels of complexity. To that end, Amdocs hasrecently announced the acquisition ofBridgewater Systems, a policy managementand network control solutions vendor for

“CSPs around theworld already

understand theneed for policy

and charging tobe integrated in

order to addressthe new world of

data and theexperiencescustomers

demand”

"



mobile and convergent service providers. Bycombining the subscriber profile managementand intelligent network control assets fromBridgewater with Amdocs’ holistic BSScustomer view, Amdocs can offer pre-integrated solutions that improves thecustomer experience, maximise data servicesrevenues and enable CSPs to achieve fast timeto market. Those are critical enablers for CSPsin the new world of data

VP: For offering a family data plan, whatwill the service provider need to makesure of, in terms of billing systemcapabilities?

GH: In shared and family plans specificsubscribers have a data allowance that theycan share across services and networks.Convergent charging needs to encompass themobile services involved, cable TV, homeconnectivity and the devices involved. There isan extremely wide range of variables forcharging mechanisms to take account of butthe proposition should be compelling becauseit makes it easy for the head of the family toopt-in rather than having different plans withdifferent providers. To enable that effectively –and it must be effective to deliver thesimplicity advantages promised to the billpayer – the PCRF needs to be aware of thehierarchical quota of all family members. Onefamily might want to give the children accessto the bulk of the mobile data entitlementwhile the adults take the majority of the voiceminutes. Another might apportion the SMS tothe children but keep the mobile data capacityfor the adults. These variables must be simplyand flexibly addressed. In addition, otherfunctions must be wrapped in to suchpropositions. Monetary metering andspending limits are often required at differentlevels for each family member and in totalacross the family.

VP: But customers are still confused.How many HD movies can I view with a5GB per month package, for example?

GH: Obviously operators need to go to marketwith plans that make sense to users. Nobodywants to attract call centre interactionsdemanding to know exactly whether all theentitlement was used. Equally, nobody wantsto lose potential revenue by abruptly throttlingbandwidth for a customer that may beprepared to pay extra to download additionalvideo content after they have reached the cap.CSPs are already introducing usagecalculators to help customers assess the dataplan most appropriate to them. Some areempowering customers to apportionbandwidth to specific applications. Forinstance, an operator can enable a user toapportion a minimum amount of bandwidth toFaceTime video calls or a cap on videodownloads. However, while these calculatorsare placed on CSP websites, most users donot access them and the average user doesn’tknow how to calculate or predict their datausage. Therefore, there’s a job of education tobe done which will enable the CSP to helpcustomers select the most appropriatepackage fitting their data consumption habits.

VP: Unlimited data didn’t work andtiered pricing isn’t intuitive so what’s thenext step in data monetisation?

GH: The next step in data monetisation is theevolution towards Value Based Pricing. Forexample movie or a games package has aclear value to a customer and they can buyinto that rather than a volume of megabits persecond. This means that packages will includeall related pre requsities such as data quotaand associated QoS to ensure that the optimalcustomer experience. So instead of wonderinghow much that Netflix movie is taking out ofyour data quota and whether or not you’d beable to watch the HD version of it, you’d get apackage of five HD movies with right amountif data and QoS levels to have a optimalviewing experience. You won’t need to workout gigabits and megabits but rather knowthat you have five movies to watch and thatwould be it.

“There’s a job of education to be done which will enable the CSP tohelp customers select the most appropriate package fitting theirdata consumption habits”


H Y B R I D B I L L I N G

The hybrid model is a great way to educate prepaid users to postpaid behaviour, sayvendors. But are they clever enough to deliver this education, asks Nick Booth?

The problem with hybrids is that it’s a slowprocess to create them. When you cross twobreeds together, you don’t always get astronger offspring. It can take generations fora genetic mutation to create a new speciesthat’s better adapted to conditions and by thattime the conditions may have changedanyway.

Ovum Research says that though 63% ofoperators now offer some sort of hybridmodel and almost half of all mobile operatorssay they need to make changes to their BSS inorder to support changing prepaid strategies.

Hybrid billing was identified as the futurenearly a decade ago, says Gordon Rawling,Oracle’s senior marketing director for EMEA.Unfortunately, it still is the future. “Prepaid

and postpaid billing systems are both fairlyblunt systems,” he says, “and many thoughtthat never the twain shall meet.”

Still the industry pursues this elusive dreamwith some urgency, as operators need tosqueeze more ARPU out of existingsubscribers. But the challenge of bringingpostpaid’s comprehensive sources ofinformation to a transaction, and somehowupgrading the subscribers use of the phonewith the immediacy of a prepaid deal isproving hard to meet.

“Yes, we are getting closer to that point, butno one is actually doing it yet,” says Rawling.

There is much to lose if they don’t get thebalance right. The incremental gains created

Is a hybrid approach thebest or worst compromise?

GordonRawling:Prepaid andpostpaid billingsystems areboth fairly bluntsystems

AnandanJayaraman:Data from preand postpaidsystems is verydifferent

“The reality is that most adjunct systems

are significantly more advanced,

streamlined and efficient than the legacy

platforms they supplement”

"


by fine-tuning the operator’s billing could beover shadowed by the losses created by afaulty hybrid.

Don’t underestimate the scale of the task, saysAnandan Jayaraman, chief marketing officerat Connectiva Systems. Operators knowthat if they get the operation wrong, they’lllose money from their subscribers, rather thangain it.

“They need to create a single view of thecustomer. But they’re finding that the datafrom pre and postpaid systems is verydifferent,” says Jayaraman, “that’s going tocause leakage.”

The prospect of a foundation of bad data,which could be exacerbated by badlyconfigured ratings engines, could lead topainful losses.

By the time the perfect hybrid is created theend game might have changed too. Once therationale was to convert one type of user – alow ARPU prepaid sort – into a more lucrativepostpaid consumer of data and video services.

When Acision, for example, worked withSetar, a network operator based in the formerDutch colony of Aruba, to entice prepaidcustomers with services not usually offered tothem, the rational was to convert them intocontract subscribers, with the offer of asubsidised smartphone.

The challenges in the developed world aredifferent, argues Jonathan Pearsonproposition marketing manager at Acision.These days the smartphone owner is likely tobe a cross breed of pre and postpaid. “AVodafone postpaid user, for example, mightbe offered a prepaid bundle of minutes forwhen they go abroad,” he says.

Meanwhile, Connectiva cites its idealisedhybrid customer to be a family in which asingle plan caters for the parents on post paidcontracts and children on pre paid for theirrespective minutes, SMS, data and videobundles.

Amdocs product marketing manager GuyHilton sees hybrids giving a postpaid user theoption of temporarily boosting theirbandwidth. “The hybrid model is a great wayto educate prepaid users to postpaidbehaviour,” he says. It relies on the vendorseducating themselves to support it, however.

The hybrid customer needs a hybrid system,but not one created by a convergence of thetwo traditional systems, argues Pearson.“Historically many converged chargingsystems failed, following massive overspends,long delays or failure to work,” he says.

Instead a hybrid should take the form of anadjunct system – a new additional system,bolted on – which, he says, is a more practicalapproach and, thus far, has “a great track record”.

Granted, this gives the operator anotherplatform to maintain – with hardware andsoftware that needs constant configuring – butit’s worth it. “The reality is that most adjunctsystems are significantly more advanced,streamlined and efficient than the legacyplatforms they supplement,” says Pearson.

That adjunct does require integration into thecentral provisioning system, CRM, datawarehouse, recharge systems and webportals. But this integration is a small jobcompared to creating a whole new prepaid orpostpaid system, adds Pearson.

Mark Windle, director of product marketing atOpenCloud, thinks a new generation ofcloud-supported hybrids could influencesubscribers and increase margins byconstantly exploiting price mechanisms.

“Pricing-promotions help shape customerbehaviour,” he says. “Operators can regaincontrol of their marketing strategies, byoffering price promotions that are not fixedinto tariffs.”

To a consumer, this sounds like mobile priceplans are going to get even more confusing.Let’s hope they haven’t gene spliced the oldbilling systems and created a monster.

“The incremental

gains created by

fine-tuning the

operator’s billing

could be

overshadowed by the

losses created by a

faulty hybrid”

JonathanPearson: Thesmartphoneowner is likelyto be a crossbreed of preand postpaid

Guy Hilton: Thehybrid model isa great way toeducate prepaidusers topostpaidbehaviour


For communications service providers (CSPs) dancing with capricious consumers whoflit from partner to partner, increasingly spending their communications budget with agrowing number of players, the large corporate and government sector offers apromising new dancing companion, with greater margins, more stability and a growingrevenue opportunity. Monica Ricci explains the billing challenges.

Enterprises across the globe, driven by theongoing convergence of communications and IT,increasingly seek new services and content whilelooking to reduce both costs and theadministrative burden of managing these newservices and technologies. For ongoing efficiencyand consistency reasons, enterprises prefer asingle consort to dance with; they do want toconsolidate their services under a single CSP’sumbrella. However, the dances are getting harderto master: employees’ work patterns are evolvingto rely increasingly on remote working andmobility, both elevating support demands.

CSPs who successfully provide service to largecorporations and governments acknowledge thatBSS requirements for this sector differ fromthose needed to serve their retail customers.Enterprise billing – the process of calculating,generating and managing bills for largecorporate or government contracts – involvesmore than just performing the same tasks ingreater volumes; it adds complexity to the billingprocess that cannot be ignored if this lucrativesegment is to be served successfully.

Customer acquisitionand order managementThe acquisition process requires the ultimate inflexibility to deliver the ultimate in complexity.The enterprise or government business willalmost always seek communications contractsthrough a tender process, and the criteria bywhich the CSP wins the enterprise’s business islargely based upon the solution’s flexibility tomeet each individual set of corporaterequirements, packaged with unique,consolidated pricing and commercial terms. Notwo enterprise contracts are alike, either in termsof the package of services offered or in thecommercial terms and conditions.

Enterprise order management and provisioningmust support every possible telecoms service inevery possible combination. This in turndemands maximum flexibility and automation to

ensure accuracy throughout the process.Enterprise orders contain countlessdependencies, usually including a number ofthird party providers and installation teams, andSLA monitoring and alarming is critical to ensurethat this first step in the dance gets off on theright foot by meeting the customer’s needs.

The enterprise BSS must support the broadestrange of telecoms and related services in aconsolidated fashion. This includes traditionalnetwork-based services that provide theconnectivity and bandwidth – to all of anenterprise’s locations, both physical and virtual;to all the enterprise’s employees who areincreasingly mobile and utilise a growingnumber of connected devices; and to thegrowing volume of data, content andapplications that are demanded by customerstoday. The network technologies required toconnect an enterprise are numerous, and theCSP must provide Customer Premise Equipment(CPE), business applications, domain nameregistrations and email management, mobileconnections and equipment, and increasingly,cloud services, desktop management, installationand IT outsourcing to accompany thisconnectivity and technology.

Filling the dance card:pricing and billingThis mixed bag of networks, devices, content andservices requires every type of chargingalgorithm. While retail billing systems specialisein a particular line of business and particularcharging algorithms, the enterprise billingsystem must enable all. T1/E1s are chargedbased upon service address, nodes and capacitybetween each node. CPE is usually contracted inbulk and charged at any point in time by thenumber of devices actually in use, and isassociated with warranty periods andreplacement cycles. Human resources forinstallation, support and management are basedupon time and materials, and may frequently beassociated with up-front or regular allotments

"

It’s time to dance withthe enterprise stars

Monica Ricci,CSGInternational:No twoenterprisecontracts arealike

ENTERPR ISE B ILL ING


that are subsequently decremented as servicesare delivered. And of course, many of theservices consumed by the enterprise users havean associated usage-based charge, whichincreasingly can be derived from any number ofparameters including bandwidth, QoS, or a valuedetermined by the third party who providescontent or applications. In the enterprise billingbusiness, the single, consolidated billing systemmust support each of these pricing mechanisms,as well as overlaying higher-level contractualterms and discounts for the bundle.

May I cut in? Managingthird parties As the bundle of services delivered to theenterprise expands, the service providerincreasingly relies upon third party partners toenable components of the package. These thirdparties can provide complementary servicesenabled by connectivity and bandwidth; contentand applications to which they own the rights;network services in another geography which theservice provider doesn’t serve; or infrastructureservices. Managing the third parties in the valuechain has implications across the BSS, includingreceiving usage records or service status fromthird party sources that must be interpreted,correlated, priced and billed; managing thepurchase order process not only between serviceprovider and customer, but between vendor andservice provider; and determining revenue shareand settlement amounts with these vendors fortheir services.

Covering the entire dance floor:an enterprise-wide viewEnterprises require billing-related features anddata that surpass those delivered by a typicalretail biller. These must include:• Providing consolidated and easily-understood

views of the customer’s organisation structure (human resources), networks and geographies (physical infrastructure), financial relationships (billing and payment responsibility), and utilisation (usage data)

• Enabling flexible, customised service bundles and price plans – typically negotiated exclusively with that customer

• Supporting reporting, not only billing views, but on the other views that enterprise customers rely upon to monitor, manage and reconcile telecoms resources most efficiently. These views are often considered alternative hierarchies – payment hierarchies, legal hierarchies, pricing hierarchies – all related to different aspects of the corporate customer’s business, all important, and all defined differently.

Today’s CSP, with an expanding footprint and avision to serve the complex needs of enterprises,

manages a plethora of billing systems; it is notunheard of for a CSP to operate dozens ofdifferent billing systems across their business.When the case to replace one or all of theseindividual billers with an enterprise systemcannot be made, a common approach is toimplement a biller that consolidates billing datafrom the individual upstream processes. Thisconsolidated biller acts as the system of recordfor end-to-end enterprise customer managementand billing, and must:• Take feeds from the individual upstream

billing systems, and rate them, re-rate them, or pass through the pre-rated charge directly to the consolidated invoice.

• Apply the enterprise contract terms and propagate them across the service, organisation and billing hierarchies.

• Generate invoices, statements and customised reporting for each enterprise level.

• Support multi-language, multi-currency and multi-tax processing for multi-national customers.

• Manage the billing reconciliation process, which for enterprises is extensive and lengthy. Managing disputes and adjustments is particularly complicated, as the enterprise biller must flow this information back to the legacy upstream billing systems.

• Serve as the system of record for general ledger journal entries.

• Support all of the processes within defined SLA terms, which can mean churning through some very high transaction volumes in very tight timeframes. Enterprise bills with hundreds of thousands of services and tens of millions of transactions are not uncommon, and need to be delivered by a certain date.

• Support automated onboard of services and hierarchy changes. The enterprise customer himself usually maintains this data internally, and shares electronically via regular updates. If and when this process fails, the CSP must reconcile, and perform Moves, Adds and Changes as efficiently as possible to reduce operational costs and ensure accuracy.

Just like professional ballroom dancers, CSPswho have mastered the complexity of enterprisebilling make it look effortless. Deals struck at onemeeting can be executed by the next; ongoingmanagement of contracts and maintenance ofhierarchies and agreements can be automated;invoices can be delivered in days and sliced anddiced for reporting. The risks are high for thosewho don’t achieve a professional standard: 10%of enterprise customers have terminated aprovider’s contract because of poor billingperformance . And the performance that scores topmarks in flexibility, throughput and automatedmanagement across the complex value chain willhave them crying out for an encore.

“Enterprise billinginvolves more thanjust performing thesame tasks ingreater volumes; itadds complexity tothe billing processthat cannot beignored if thislucrative segmentis to be servedsuccessfully”


The author, MonicaRicci is director ofproduct marketing atCSG International.



Real-time charging enables the real-time customer experiences the market demands.It also enables elimination of bill shock, allows for two-sided business models andimproves the customer experience, writes Jaco Fourie.

The communications industry is moving morequickly today than ever before. But tounderstand where we are going, let’s lookback to the 1990s, to understand where we arecoming from. Mobile phone uptake was slowback then, it was expensive and as a result itbecame a product for the affluent few. It tookimportant innovation to change this and ourworld has not been the same since. It was thebeginning of a new business model, one thatenabled differentiation and made it possible tosell mobile telephony in a new way. A waythat was accessible to the mass market whileat the same time manageable and profitablefor operators. The business model was calledprepaid. Real-time charging was the enablingtechnology that made it possible for theoperator to control their credit exposure, whileenabling the masses to get access to mobiletelephony and control their spending.

Looking forward, we have started the journeytowards the networked society, whereeverything that will benefit from beingconnected will be connected. We envision thatby 2020 we will have 50 billion connecteddevices that will connect more or less everyhuman being, improving their quality of life,the way we do business and enriching thesocieties we live in. This will create animmense amount of new opportunities foroperators – new business models, new valuechains and new demands from users on thequality of experience they receive.

We are once again seeing the need fordeploying technology to create and supporttoday and tomorrow’s opportunities.

Today, the industry is buzzing with questionslike:1. How to prevent bill-shock?2. How to monetise Over The Top (OTT) traffic?3. How to address the low spenders?4. How to improve customer experience?5. How to grow mobile broadband subscriptions?

The answer? It requires online data and real-time processes. It is no longer sufficient to useoffline Support Systems (BSS/OSS) processessuch as those primarily used by the operators torun their businesses today. They must transformto business-enabling online systems that are anessential part of an operator’s product offeringsand their relationship with customers andpartners. A transformation that will make itpossible to, for example:

1. Eliminate bill-shock2. Enable a two sided business model3. Create differentiated and segmented offers4. Empower sales and customer support staff5. Grow the business and profit

Let’s examine mobile broadband as anexample of how the industry is changing.Currently we are experiencing a strong uptakeof mobile broadband around the world. Thismeans, once again, we have come to a point

"

Real customerexperience for all usersrequires real-time anddelivers real revenue

Jaco Fourie:Plans notindividualenough tocapture massmarket

“Many users onvolume packages

have difficultyunderstanding how

much they haveused monthly and

operators havedifficulties up-sellingto users when theyreach their limits”

R E A L - T I M E C H A R G I N G


where we need to rethink existing businessmodels. Today’s approach is dominated byplans where the differentiation is primarilythrough differently sized megabyte orgigabyte bundles with varied monthly fees.These are not individual enough to capture thetrue mass market and address the needs of allthe emerging segments. There are some whowant or need to have access to everything andare more than happy to pay for a premiumplan. Others will prefer paying only forselected services that fit their lifestyle. Manyusers on volume packages have difficultyunderstanding how much they have usedmonthly and operators have difficulties up-selling to users when they reach their limits.So what happens if more targeted serviceofferings are introduced? How will usersunderstand what their plans allow them to do?How will operators be able to create up-sell?

Real-time for all users and all services will bethe foundation for success. The key customertouch points can improve the customerexperience when leveraging real-timeinformation and real-time decisions:

• Find – First of all, the offerings need to be easy to find. Not only in stores and on the street corner, but also on the web. This means promoting to your existing customers when they access your self-care portal or when they, in real-time, are notifiedabout the cost for their current usage.

• Get – Make finding the product and signing up for it smooth and enjoyable, both when it comes to getting the broadband connectivity, but also OTT services. This means making sure that you in real-time can offer the customer the ability to purchase or access a service if it is not included in their current plan. For example if a customer is exploring a service, you, in real-time, can present them with a relevant selection of offers. This is beneficial not only for them, but to you, and your OTT partners.

• Setup – With real-time, seamless activation/delivery of the purchased service is enabled so that the user can instantly start using the service they have selected. There is no room here for the time consuming manual or off-line processes, users want instant results.

• Use – Services must be easy to use with a price that is easy to understand. Why should I pay for the data traffic if I’m already paying for the movie? Solving that question requires a two-sided business model with OTT players to ensure real-time access, delivery and quality control in order to deliver the right quality of experience.

• Pay – It should be easy to pay for usage. Not only for the initial usage, but also when it comes to paying for additional offers as limits are reached or when users want to use new services. This requires real-time control of a users’ balance to manage credit risk and allow them to instantly purchase new services, thereby creating additional revenues.

• Get Help – It enhances the experience customers receive when using customer care channels if you are always able to present up to date information to users about their consumption, problems they have experienced and compensations they have received.

• Modify – It creates the flexibility to easily modify the contract and service levels by adding or removing new services as their needs and demands change, all in real-time.

Skeptics of real-time and online Business/Operations Support Systems will say it ismore expensive than the current offlinesystems, but how is it then possible to serve76% (according to WCIS) of the global mobileusers with real-time charging systems whenyou consider that most of these users areprepaid and consequently with that low ARPUusers. Real-time is fundamentally differentfrom the traditional offline way of doing thingsand when done correctly, with real-time andonline thinking end-to-end, it is not only costefficient to implement, but also to run in thelong term.

So is enabling a real-time experience for allusers to earn real revenue growth a reality ora dream for operators today? The fact is thatthe technology exists, but that full deploymentof its capabilities is still rather limited. Formost operators a transformation of businessprocesses and supporting systems is requiredand that is not a dream, but together with theright partner you avoid making it a nightmare.

“Real-time isfundamentallydifferent from thetraditional offlineway of doing thingsand, when donecorrectly, is notonly cost efficientto implement, butalso to run in thelong term”

The author, Jaco Fourie isdirector ofbusinessdevelopmentand strategiesat Ericsson.


Billing for MNCs (multinationalcorporations) is complex becauseit involves cross-border activities,interconnects with third partiesand a customer set that is asdemanding as it is willing to pay.George Malim reports on one ofthe few growth opportunitiesoperators have remaining inmature markets.

Addressing the MNC market is extremely attractive to operator groups. Winningpan-European business from a blue chip company has obvious attractions interms of opportunity cost and adding high-value enterprise users to thecustomer base. However, such MNCs use their purchasing power to driveadvantageous deals and expect their provider to give them with billing andusage data in the format of their choice. That poses a challenge for operatorgroups’ fragmented billing capabilities. For once, the operator isn’t to blame.Years of acquisition and mergers have led to countries having separatesystems and initiatives to standardise in future generations are stillunderway. Nevertheless, operator groups have to move now to harnessthe opportunity.

“Enterprise customers are often high value and highly profitable,industry commentators expect their importance and revenue potentialto grow further,” says Greg Coogan, senior manager, Telecoms atConvergys. “But enterprise customers also represent a significantbottom line risk if things go wrong.”

That’s a difficulty Matt Hooper, chief marketing officer at MDS, alsoidentifies. “Service providers still struggle very much with thedifferences and the additional complexity of managing a businesscustomer base in comparison to a consumer base,” he says.“Supporting an enterprise communications estate encompassesdifferent currencies, dealing with [different national] reportingmechanisms and working with different people and localpersonnel.”

Multinationalenterprisesdemand billingthat is premium,agile and reflectstheir needs

B ILL ING FOR MNCS

“You have to deal withdifferent countries and

currencies and thatrequires a different layer to

the billing systems. Youhave to take it one step

higher than the billingsystem. The challenge for

the operators is to takethe billing system data and

provide that consolidatedview that enterprises

demand.”

"


Emma Dunleavy, technical pre-sales manager atCTI Group, points out how different this marketis to the consumer market. “One of the maindifferences is due to the complexity of trying toprovide a consolidated view into the corporate,”she says. “You have to deal with differentcountries and currencies and that requires adifferent layer to the billing systems. You have totake it one step higher than the billing system.The challenge for the operators is to take thebilling system data and provide that consolidatedview that enterprises demand.”

And enterprises are a demanding base toaddress. They’ve been promised by operatorsthat single sourcing across their multi-nationaloperations will deliver savings and efficienciesand they want to see them. “Enterprisecustomers – especially multinationals – expectcost transparency and a wide range of servicesthat can accommodate a variety of needs, suchas multi-currency, multi-taxation based billing,sophisticated, consolidated billing, reporting andanalytics,” adds Coogan. “From basic voice anddata for lower staff levels, to VIP services forexecutives, there are a range of complex, newproductivity-enhancing, cost-reducing serviceson the horizon. In addition, service requirementsare also susceptible to frequent change, forexample, the addition of new employees, orpromotions within an enterprise.”

Dunleavy’s colleage at CTI Group, AmandaPearson, product manager at the vendor,explains: “Corporates are pushing to know whattheir global spend is and their local operations ineach country also want to know their spenddefined by data and local currency,” she says.MNC customers don’t want only that type ofseparated view but also a comparative view so aparcel company, for example, can compare itsoperations in France with those in Germany.

The mechanics of meeting those needs are at theheart of the challenge. “Key considerations onthe retail billing side include the ability to bill oneaccount with subscriptions in different countriesand being able to separate charges,” explainsLucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee. “On thewholesale side – profitability is contingent onensuring accurate settlement between theinternational entities. Because group operatorsdon’t have a global network, accurate settlementand reconciliation is vital for these types ofpackages.”

Of course, in spite of the outward impression,operator groups do not have homogenous billingsystems. That should be the ultimate aim, saysDunleavy, but an analytical layer that enablesthem to provide MNC customers with the billingdata they require, presented in their format ofchoice, from the billing systems in operation,enables them to participate in this market.

Hooper cites research from MDS that foundplenty of room for operators to improve theirenterprise customers’ levels of satisfaction. “80%to 90% of enterprise respondents were kind ofsatisfied with their service but that left only 20%

who aredelighted with theservice they get,” he says.“Issues include being tied in tocontracts for services they no longerneed and there not being enough transparencyaround billing.”

Operators could be making a grave error if theydon’t target this market, thinks Hooper. “MNCsare going through a rationalisation of thenumber of service providers they deal with,” hesays. “They’re starting to deal with fewer andfewer suppliers but they put more and morebusiness with them so it’s both a risk and anopportunity for operators. This market is one ofthe most, if not the most, profitable bases and isa growth opportunity for operators but they havegot to be able to address it in a co-ordinated andtransparent way. The agility you need to addressthis market is quite different to the consumermarket so there is actually a strong business casefor having a dedicated support infrastructure toaddress this market.”

Operators shouldn’t just look at the MNC marketas another subset of their customer base.“Simply put, operators must look to provide apremium service to a premium segment of themarket,” says Coogan. “Operators must keeppace with changes and provideeffective and timely managementof services at competitive ratesand tariffs. With customer demandfor control and increasing complexityin service offerings, operators face a‘control’ challenge in serving enterprisecustomers. To meet this challengerequires close analysis of enterprisecustomer expectations, behavioursand bills. To not meet this challengemeans sacrificing one of the few highmargin audiences available to mobileoperators.”

The challenge is simultaneously that appealingand that stark.


Price is the regulating mechanism of any market. The more complex the forces ofsupply and demand, the more sophisticated and fluid the pricing mechanism, andcorresponding policy control in the network, needs to be. Miguel Carrero, director ofactionable customer intelligence at HP, explains that in the age of LTE, pricing’sresponse needs to be more SNAPpy

VanillaPlus: What’s the difference betweenbilling and charging and policy control?

Miguel Carrero: We talk about policy control, inaddition to billing and charging, because with theadvent of LTE, policy is becoming a key elementin billing and charging. The nature of chargingand policy are interlaced as we moved into moresophisticated services and networks.

It’s not like the old days of telephony when therewas only one service, only a few ways ofcharging, such as prepaid or postpaid plans, andvery poor customer segmentation. In those days,basic operator units were used for charging, suchas time for voice or data volume for dataservices. When things got too complicated, flatrate pricing was used to hide complexity. Butnow the business logic is very different. It isbased on many more variables. There are manymore services, more devices, more networks –and naturally, many more types of customers.Vanilla billing is not enough in the age of LTE.

VP: So pricing has to be far more responsive?

MC: Yes. Consider all the many services acustomer could be using: the many differentdevices, the many different networks; the manydifferent times of day for usage, the differentbilling preferences and so on. Service providersare really looking at many different kinds ofcustomers. In order to service all these customertypes, service providers have to juggle theirresources of bandwidth, storage, and processingpower. So, from both sides of the equation,demand for services and supply of resources, wehave very complex business parameters. Thesuccess of any market depends on using theprice mechanism to find the sweet spot whereprice and demand intersect. We have verycomplex business logic and very complexparameters. A flat fixed price is not sophisticatedenough for this model.

Today, the real challenge is how we address thissophisticated environment in a way that iscomprehensible for the average user – who is notan expert in telecoms.

VP: You’re saying that the market cannotfind its level and evolve unless we have abetter price model? Is that what policycontrol is about?

MC: Yes, exactly. I’m saying that the finergrained pricing models we now need should besupported by a policy function. HP’s SNAP(subscriber network application policy) solutionis designed to give this level of policy control.

The idea is to create a foundation of businessrules that can span multiple domains, such asdifferent customers, networks, services orsuppliers. So, with this policy foundation, aservice provider will have a system to work outthe charging in a more structured way becausethey will be able to segment customers byprofile, device type, services used or time of day.

Service providers need to know more. Who is thesubscriber? Which device and service is he orshe using? Is this usage putting the network in acongested state? Which network is the subscriberusing? Is it a hotspot? Is it a congested LTE area?Is the subscriber experimenting with the serviceor is he consuming it 24x7, such as with peer-to-peer traffic?

With this information, service providers cancharge accordingly. The point is, some peopleare prepared to pay for higher levels of service,so their potential payments are now beingmissed. On the other hand, some will not want topay the same price for a lower grade of service,so their business will be lost as they feel theyhave been over-charged. Policy control allowsservice providers to give these customers whatthey want.

"Linking charging to policy to wincustomers’ hearts, minds andpocketbooks in an LTE world

Miguel Carrero:Successdepends onfinding thesweet spotwhere price anddemandintersect

PRICING & POLICY CONTROL


VP: Does LTE give you the opportunity tochange things?

MC: We’re putting massive emphasis on LTE –and this new network generation is intensifyingthe challenges … putting them on steroids, so tospeak. With LTE we will have true mobilebroadband for subscribers to consume very richmedia services. Effectively, LTE will mobilisemost of the content and services now on theinternet.

But LTE arrives on top of a previous multi-billionnetwork investment – and the co-existence ofnetworks makes the provision of services muchmore complicated. On the other hand, it mightalso empower the service providers with moreinformation. Much of the success of the newpolicy approach will rely on the ability of theoperators to charge and apply policy control in amore intelligent, sophisticated way.

VP: Are operators missing out now becausetheir billing is too simplistic?

MC: The short answer is yes. Now the situationvaries depending on which country you are in. Indifferent geographies, billing is evolving indifferent ways. In North America, we relied onthe flat fee mechanism to unlock mobile dataconsumption. But we’ve hit a barrier assubscribers are using smartphones to consumemasses of bandwidth. So, service providers aremoving to a more segmented network, awayfrom flat fee pricing … in pursuit of a more fairapproach in which customers pay in relation tohow much value they get. But it’s still notsophisticated enough.

VP: How much money is being lost asconsumers are put off? And how much islost by undercharging for people who hogall the bandwidth?

MC: We don’t have those sorts of figures, but wedo have analysis that tells us the delta of peoplewho are cut off from the market and those otherswho would pay more for services they are nowusing..Flat rates are hampering the market. It’s liketrying to have a free market without the pricemechanism.

The good news is that we have the insights andthe technology to make it work. First, serviceproviders have to eliminate silos of information.After all, you only get an efficient market inconditions where there is perfect informationavailable to buyers and sellers. In this case, theinformation not only needs to be available, but to

be fully understandable. For example, it does nothelp if my wife knows that she can use 200MB ofdata traffic for free with a surcharge over 200MBwhen a megabyte means nothing to her.

As buyers, subscribers want to know whatservices are available and how much they cost.Then they can make the decision whether it’sworth downloading that movie clip. As sellers,service providers will want to know all about thesubscriber. Who they are, what they use, howlong they will be using a service. HP SNAP aims tohelp make that information available in real time.

If this information is obtained and used in realtime, service providers need to manage networkresources carefully to avoid negative impacts onservice performance. At HP, we embrace the LTEopportunity with what we call ActionableCustomer Intelligence. In ACI, we see three keysteps. We need a single, holistic view of thesubscriber, with all the information gatheredtogether from different silos, such as differentnetwork elements, billing, customer care andOSS systems, into one cohesive unit. Second, weneed to be able to analyse it in real time. I’mtalking about big data real time analytics. Andthird, we need to be able to act! Once I, as theservice provider, know which subscriber,application/service and network you are on, thenI can begin to do something about the service Ioffer you. In many cases, acting on the analyticswill manifest itself in a charging component, andso we see the interlaced nature of charging andpolicy.

VP: What are the key challenges there?

MC: We have commented on some of thetechnical challenges, and many of them areresolved. One of the remaining big challenges isthat many operators and therefore many vendorsstill live in a siloed environment where customer,network and service data is in different systems andmay be divided by network generations. Thesesilos greatly impede the ability to offer the kindsof policy and charging options we’ve discussed.

Also, many still see charging and policy asseparate entities, which in our opinion is anarchaic notion from the pre-LTE past. Only withan integrated, cohesive approach can serviceproviders deliver the value that is beingpromised to the customer.

We believe LTE is a major catalyst for pricingchange and that there is progress. However thelinking of Policy and Charging could bedramatically accelerated with cross-disciplineapproaches such as what HP SNAP provides.

“Flat rates arehampering themarket. It’s liketrying to have afree market withoutthe pricemechanism”


O P E R A T O R I N T E R V I E W

Mark Kenealy is UK and Ireland country manager for Orange Business Services. Incontrast to typical operator country managers, very little of Kenealy’s operationsactually involve the countries under his leadership. Instead, his purpose is to winmultinational corporate business globally from firms headquartered within the UK andIreland. He’s not trying to sell local connectivity and services, although that is a minoritypart of his business. He’s looking to deliver global services to the largest companies inthe world, he tells George Malim.

“We’ve got probably the biggest core network inthe world,” he explains, “And, much as I’m UKmanaging director, 90% of the business is global.Typically I deal with companies like HSBC andGlaxo Smith Kline and help them as they expandinto Asia and South America.”

The aim for Kenealy is not simply to sell accessto that core network but to bolt on a range ofservices, especially taking into account OrangeBusiness Services’ footprint in emerging markets.“Although [core network] is commoditised in alot of areas, in Africa, for example, it isn’t,” headds. “We’re in a lot of major areas in Africa dueto the France Telecom link. In emerging marketswe’re strong in the more remote areas of Russiaand all the ’Stans. We’re looking to partner to getinto China and things are picking up in SouthAmerica – Brazil is flying.”

Kenealy, a former Computacenter executive whoran that company’s managed services, isn’t atraditional operator executive. “The reason I’mhere is that I have more of a solutions, servicesand consulting background,” he explains.“Bolting on a set of solutions is previouslysomething that France Telecom hadn’t beenparticularly successful at. Of course, it has beenmassively successful with wireless sales butUnified Communications and cloud andparticularly now, the device explosion is playinginto the drivers for people to have apps-ledservices. The market is playing into our hands.”

Kenealy points out that Orange BusinessServices was early to identify the cloudopportunity and has been offering cloud serviceswith partner EMC for two years. “Customers arealready buying infrastructure from us so it’seasier for them to buy solutions from us as well,”he says. “We’re the first major telecomsorganisation to have a fit for purpose cloud readynetwork. There are loads of opportunities comingup driven by cloud.”

However, managing the back office and billing inparticular for these types of complex, multi-national services and customers is a significantchallenge. “The billing relationship is hugelycomplex,” acknowledges Kenealy. “We have anoffice in Ireland that does all our billing and wehave to do it in any language, in any currency,taking into account tax laws, VAT and theconversion rates a company might require. Onecustomer might want everything expressed inUS dollars another might want to be billed in arange of currencies.”

“Simple things, like the UK putting up VAT to20% from 17.5% cause all sorts of problems,” headds. However, that brings opportunities. “Thecomplexity does play into our hands because,when customers get billed in the form they want,it becomes a risk to change that. It is a risk tochange their network provider and that meansour retention rate is 90%.”

Tailored billingdrives customerretention, saysOrange BusinessServices chief

The aim for Kenealyis not simply to sellaccess to that corenetwork but to bolt

on a range ofservices, especiallytaking into account

Orange BusinessServices’ footprint inemerging markets.


Documents

VanillaPlus Magazine - August-Sept 2011