New billing systems vital for ISP growth

Yu Wui Wui
New Straits Times
04-05-2000
New billing systems vital for ISP growth
Byline: Yu Wui Wui
Edition: 2*
Section: Software Site
Memo: (STF) - ISPs must deal with complicated services and billing arrangement to meet increasing customer needs.

TO stay competitive, Internet service provider (ISPs) are not just offering Internet access services, but are also delivering a range of new and innovative service offerings such as Web hosting and virtual private network (VPN).

"The ISP market is competitive and providers need to change their business models and redesign their pricing plans to meet current customer demands," says Robert Lau, Portal Software (Asia-Pacific) Ltd's vice president for Asia-Pacific. He adds that three prominent trends in billing systems are real-time, usage-based, and convergence to Internet protocol (IP).
Providers are required to be flexible and proactive in terms of what services they offer, how quickly they can bring those services to market, and how effectively they manage their customer base.

Lau points out that billing systems will also need to be flexible and scalable, to support the rapid increase in the number of subscribers. It is increasingly critical for providers to implement business software system that can function as an active up-front selling solution, not just passive, back-office billing system.

He says that although most telcos and ISPs have developed their own systems, these systems cannot really support the internal and external demands for new services such as real-time provisioning of services and cross bundling of services and products.

"Time to market is key to survival in this market. Standard-based package solution is much preferred," says Lau. He adds that businesses cannot wait long for in-house development teams to come out with the right solutions.

Lau claims that Portal Software's billing solution, Infranet can work side by side other in-house solutions. "Infranet offers a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that allows real-time interfacing to third-party systems and packages," he points out. "In fact, Infranet is able to interface applications such as call centres, ERP (enterprise resource planning), accounting, payment systems, and bill presentment systems."

The latest version 6.0 of Infranet includes new private branding features that allow Internet protocol (IP)-hosting providers to offer competitive functionalities such as multiple services, data segmentation, and branding of all customer touch points, within a hierarchical security framework.

According to Lau, this version also offers enhanced pricing and rating features that simplify the rating process and enables complex, real-time rating models such as real-time volume tiering and discounting.

"In addition, the multi-database support feature provides scalability for large and complex systems by distributing customer information across multiple databases within a single Infranet installation," he adds.

The new IP telephony features in version 6.0 includes a gateway development kit that offers integration to new gateways, bulk account management, enhanced zone-based rating, speed dialling and number blocking, and new reports.

Some of Portal Software's customers in Asia-Pacific include Asia Online, Shanghai Online, UUNET, Infocom Technologies in the Philippines, and Cyber Internet in Pakistan.

Portal Software will also be opening a new office in Malaysia in the second half of this year. The company has partnered Datacraft to market Infranet in Asia-Pacific.

Illustrations/Photos:
Caption: Lau: Service providers need to change their business models
and redesign their pricing plans to meet current customer demands.

(Copyright 2000)