|
Intec launches Version 7 of world’s most successful
interconnect billing system, with extensive new functionality
- Enhanced
InterconnecT Billing support for next-generation revenue
streams
- Lower cost of ownership, faster time-to-market and
improved usability
April 20 2004 - Intec today announced the general
availability of InterconnecT billing v7, a substantially enhanced new
version of its market leading interconnect billing solution.
InterconnecT billing v7 provides telecoms operators with a wide range of
new capabilities for next-generation services, plus many
enhancements to existing functions for voice, data, IP and
mobile operators. Combined, InterconnecT billing v7’s new features offer
many benefits to operators, particularly next generation and
broadband service providers. They include lower cost of
ownership and increased productivity through greater automation
and ease of use, improved time to market for new services, and
comprehensive billing support for new revenue streams such as
multimedia content.
InterconnecT billing and content/data services
“InterconnecT billing v7 combines Intec’s unmatched experience of
customer requirements in over 60 countries with the latest
technologies to produce a truly outstanding product,” explains
Kevin Adams, Intec’s CEO. “Version 7 incorporates everything we
have learned in 200 fixed, wireless and IP customer sites,
combined with the feedback we have from the marketplace on
next-generation requirements. This is a future-proof product
which raises the bar on interconnect billing. I think customers
will be hugely impressed with what this system can do for their
future service revenue flows.”
Among the many billing scenarios supported by InterconnecT
billing v7 is
the ability to offer convergent bills for services over mobile
phones or multiple devices and pricing of new services based on
value, usage or quality of service. Furthermore, InterconnecT
billing v7
can support multi-party settlement where a single event record
can be used to settle with any number of partners, as well as
real-time, web-based partner access to accruing settlement
statements through interfaces to Content Partner Management. In
short, InterconnecT billing v7 supports any type of settlement model,
making it the most adaptable next generation settlement solution
in the OSS market today.
InterconnecT billing v7 is a natural evolution of Intec’s best of breed
interconnect billing product, which currently supports over 200
customers around the world including Tier One companies such as
France Telecom, Vodafone, Orange and Hutchison’s ‘3’ Mobile
Group. All aspects of the application have been improved, based
on Intec’s extensive experience in billing, leading to the
following key benefits:
Low Cost of Ownership & Increased Productivity
InterconnecT billing v7 uses advanced data management techniques,
including compression, to reduce storage costs. It also offers
substantially enhanced Reference data management for lower cost
of ownership as well as supporting File level Undo for secure,
simplified error processing. In addition, the application can
deploy additional rating engines running on low cost commodity
hardware to achieve a highly effective and readily scalable
rating solution.
Increased productivity is another benefit of InterconnecT
billing v7.
This is achieved by server side processing of interconnect
billing agreement data which greatly increases the speed of data load.
The new, integrated bulk loaders are server-based components.
All the work is now done on the more powerful multi-CPU server
where data can be imported through a common set of validation
components.
InterconnecT billing v7 also features a brand new Graphical User
Interface, with the ability to control all system administration
as well as user tasks. The GUI, which is based on current best
practice in user interface design, also features full,
context-sensitive on-line help and system documentation. The
system also offers guided correction of errors, allowing the
user to rectify CDR processing errors with maximum efficiency.
Time to Market
InterconnecT billing v7 can improve time to market for new and more
complex business scenarios by allowing the use of a host of
additional data fields on the CDR to influence the choice of
rates and the calculation of elements of the price. Any service
scenario can be readily rated making it easier for a customer’s
marketing department to conceive and launch new products faster
than competitors. In addition, InterconnecT billing v7 provides a very
flexible discounting module which supports all types of
discounting scenarios including monetary, call count, usage,
tiered and threshold discounts as well as penalty rates. The
concept of Cross Product Discounting provides triggers in the
system which allow for certain types of traffic to be
cross-discounted (e.g., if mobile is less than 5% of fixed
traffic then a discount of 1.5% is given on all traffic). The
Volume Based Rating features allow users to negotiate/offer
extremely flexible agreements and define rates based on traffic
volumes, including committed volumes and a host of other user
definable criteria.
InterconnecT billing v7 speeds up invoice production by enabling the
segregation of the Billing Period into revenue and expense
elements such that the revenue elements can be closed off and
invoiced immediately without having to wait for outstanding
rating information to be in place before the billing period can
be closed. A flexible summarization function now enables the
user to specify how and at what level data should be summarized
before financial export takes place, thereby reducing data
storage needs. This, combined with advanced data storage
techniques, reduces overall cost of ownership through lower
system costs.
Billing for New Revenue Streams
The emergence of next generation content billing requirements is
one of the many drivers behind InterconnecT billing v7. As a result, the
application is designed to provide full support for rating data
(e.g. SMS) and content (e.g. MMS) traffic, in addition to
traditional voice traffic, for a variety of different scenarios
including complex multi-step and multi-component rating rules. A
new module supports the charging of non-usage events such as
leased lines and facility rentals, as well as one-off charges
for IP peering agreements. Furthermore, InterconnecT billing V7’s
sophisticated cross product and cross-partner discounting
features combine to produce a highly developed platform for the
modeling of intricate business to business content settlement
agreements. InterconnecT billing v7 also offers real time, web based
partner access. This allows other partners to access the system
securely over the Internet and query their balances, agreement
and set-up information. About Intec
Intec Telecom Systems is an award-winning worldwide Operations
Support Systems (“OSS”) vendor for fixed, mobile and
next-generation networks (ie. WLAN, 3G and IP), with more than
500 installations of its products worldwide. Founded in 1997,
Intec was listed on the London Stock Exchange (Code: ITL.L) in
June 2000. Intec is the market leader in intercarrier billing
systems and convergent mediation software, and a recent winner
of the 2003 Global Billing Award – Best Overall Contribution,
and Telestrategies ‘2003 Mediation Excellence Award’.
Intec’s portfolio includes:
Inter-mediatE™ -
convergent billing mediation solution
InterconnecT™ -
intercarrier
billing including US CABS and ITU
Inter-activatE™ - flow-through provisioning and
service telecom activation
Inter-contenT™ - end-to-end content revenue management
Intec Dynamic Charging Platform™ – a real-time pre/post-paid
charging interface between the network and the back office
Intec ASF™ - end-to-end billing and management for advanced data
services
Intec’s customer base includes, among others, BellSouth,
BellSouth Peru, Brazil Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Cesky Telecom
(Czech Republic), China Unicom, COLT Telecommunications, EBT
(Taiwan), Eircom (Ireland), France Telecom, Hutchison 3G, Maxis
(Malaysia), Singtel Optus (Australia), Orange, Telecom
Argentina, Telecom Egypt, Telecom Italia, Tiscali, TPSA
(Poland), Swisscom, T-Mobile International, Telia (Sweden),
Telefonica, Telkom South Africa, Telstra, US Cellular, Westel
(Hungary), Vodafone, VimpelCom (Russia) and Verizon. For more
information on Intec Telecom Systems, visit the website at
the Intec
Telecom Billing
website.
|
