Apidays Singapore 2024 - Modernizing Securities Finance by Madhu Subbu
Telecom BSS
1. Telecom BSS
0G, 1G, 2G, 2.5G, 2.75G and now 3G
and 4G —> nG.
Mukesh Binani
Cerillion Technologies (I) Pvt. Ltd.
2. Telecommunications Services
Not just about Voice or Data
Using a calling card
Premium Rate Services like call to
directory, horoscopes, chat, scores,
news etc.
Call routing like call forward
Dialing services
Screening services (call blocking,, DND)
Interrupt services (call transferring, call
waiting)
Televoting
IVR
3. Players of Telecom Industry
Network operator/Service provider
Customer like you and me
M-Payment and M-Commerce
Content Service Provider
Handsets Maker
Internet sites
Revenue Assurance
Regulatory Authority
BOSS
4. Service provider
High competition
High Churn
Technology is
growing very fast
Growth is exponential
Huge investment
6. Customer
Spoilt by choice
Huge expectations
Needs attention and time to respond
is zero.
Zero illusion with reference to quality,
reliability and cost.
7. M-Payment and M-Commerce
Use of mobile phone to make
payment
Mobile ticketing
Location based service
Mobile banking
NFC
M-Pesa, mcheck
8. Content Provider
VAS – Any service other then
voice
Helps in increase ARPU
Movies, Music, games, ringtones,
alerts
9. Smart Phones
A smart phone is a high-end mobile
phone built on a mobile computing
platform, with more advanced
computing ability and connectivity
than a feature phone.
Android, iphones
Apps
10. B/OSS
OSS: Operations support system
The term OSS most frequently describes "network systems"
dealing with the telecom network itself, supporting processes
such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services,
configuring network components, and managing faults.
BSS: Business support system
Dealing with customers, supporting processes such as taking
orders, processing bills, and collecting payments
11. The Challenges of Billing
Why Bill?
What is Billing System?
Types of Billing System
Early Billing System
Today’s Billing System
Elements of Billing System
Challenges of Billing System
Billing Pillars
Billing Schemes
Billing a changing perception
12. Why Bill?
You have uses the service
so you need to pay the bill.
No one likes to pay it
Bill Shock
13. What is billing system?
The process of sending a bill (also
called an invoice or accounts
receivable) to customers for goods
or services is called billing.
In the telecom industry, the term
billing is also used for systems and
methods that collect information
about telephone calls and other
services that are going to be billed
to the subscriber.
14. Types of Billing Systems
Offline - Postpaid
Online – Prepaid
Interconnect
Convergent Systems
15. Offline (Postpaid) Billing System
Network Mediator
Mediator
Sandwich between network and down stream systems
Task:
Get raw CDRs from network
Process (Rules)
Pass the output to downstream systems like retail billing,
interconnect billing, revenue assurance & Fraud management,
data warehouse etc.
16. Online (Prepaid) Billing System
OCS
ABMF Recharge Server
CTF OCF
OCS: Online Charging
System
RF ABMF: Account Balance
Management Function
RF: Rating Function
CTF: Charging Trigger
Function
OCF: Online Charging
Function
18. Types of Accounting
Direct Accounting
Cascade Accounting
Charging Policies
Destination based billing
Distance based billing
19. Early Billing Systems
Technologies did not converge in a
true sense
Multiple bills for multiple services
Multi shop contact
Product Centric
Non magnetic …non attractive
Non Competitive
Market segments very limited
20. Today’s Billing Systems
Technologies are converging
Single bill for multiple services offered irrespective of
which services and who is offering
Customer centric …Customer is GOD
Magnetic …more attractive Bonus and Discounts
Competitive …Survival of fittest with reference to
technology, adaptively, Customization, Time to
Market, Time to respond , Customer care, future
trends and provisioning
Multiple market segments …attractive price models
Complex pricing rules
More and more diversified products
Time to market
Accurate
Flexibility
21. Elements of a Billing System
Customer/Product/Usage tariff data
Mediation
Rating
Billing
Bill Formatting/Printing
Payment
Collections/Settlements
22. Challenges of Billing System
New services constantly added - have to be
integrated with existing billing system.
High data throughput, Scalability
Competition
Wide variation among service models
Multiple account permutation motivated by
varying services
Flexibility – Lead time to market
Convergence
Integration
24. Billing Schemes
Monthly flat rate fee (ADSL, GPRS, local calls)
Per minute (speech, circuit data, video conferencing)
Per megabyte (GPRS, WLAN)
Per message (SMS, e-mail)
Per view (video on demand)
Per transaction (music downloads)
Per click (click through advertising)
Per page (fax)
Per $ (commission)
Per bullet (interactive games)
Or per combinations of the above
Or modified by daytime, volume etc.
25. Billing a Changing Perception
Critical part of BSS
Revenue generation
Communication with customer
Helps in reducing churn
26. E-Billing and Selfcare
Reduce cost
Enhance customer experience
Preserve the environment
Push v/s Pull
27. COTS
Commercial off-the-shelf
Products that are ready-made and
available for sale to the general
public.
Save time, cost from in-house
development
Requires configuration.
Tailored for specific use.
28. Typical Flow of a Billing System
A customer orders and it gets activated
in Network
Customer makes a call and usage are
received, mediated, rated.
Customer is billed and bill is dispatched
Payments
Debt management recovery
29. How it all starts
CSP starts the business and wants a
billing system or want to move to a new
billing system.
Migration
Configuration
Integration
Deployment
30. Roaming
Prepaid Roaming
CAMEL
Customised Applications for Mobile
network Enhanced Logic
Postpaid Roaming
TAP/CIBER
UTC
SDR
31. Discount
In US 15% subscribers account for 95% of
carrier profits!
Increase call usage and hence ARPU.
Proper network utilization
Increase customer base
32. Mobile Number Portability (MNP)
The ability to change service provider without changing
number
Routing of call – ACQ
There are various flavors of call routing implementation
across the globe but the international best practice is via
the use of a central database (CDB) of ported numbers.
Network operators generally hold local copies of CDB and
refer to it to find out which network to send a call to. This is
also known as All Call Query (ACQ) and is highly efficient
and scalable. Majority of the established and upcoming
MNP systems across the world are based on this
ACQ/CDB method of call routing.
33. MVNOs
MNOs
MVNOs
MVNEs
Reasons:
To lower the barriers for market entry
and ultimately increase competition.
A strategic decision by an MNO looking
to extend its existing operations and
target niche or undeserved segments
through a second or perhaps multiple
brands.
34. Interfaces
Usage CDRs Provisioning
TAP/CIBER
System
Bill Printing and Payment Gateway
Notifications like Credit card
Banking systems
General Ledger
like Direct Debit
BSS
Address Lookup Credit Check
Inventory like SIM
Card
IVR Line Plant
Management,
Hardware
36. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a
product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are
provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a
network (typically the Internet). E.g. networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services.
37. Cloud Computing
Characteristics
On demand self service
Broad network access
Resource pooling
Rapid elasticity
Measured Service
38. Cloud Computing
Service Model
• SaaS : Cloud software as a Service
The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications
running on a cloud infrastructure.
• PaaS : Cloud Platform as a Service
The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud
infrastructure.
• IaaS : Cloud Infrastructure as a Service
The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage,
networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer
is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating
systems and applications.
39. Cloud Computing
Deployment Models
Private Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization.
Community Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and
supports a specific community that has shared concerns
Public Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a
large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud
services
Hybrid Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private,
community, or public)
40. BSS and the Cloud
Billing (BSS) for cloud
CSP uses the BSS to charge for cloud services based on
customer usage.
Billing (BSS) in the cloud
The cloud is used as an IaaS or PaaS and BSS is
deployed on the resource for efficiency reason.
Billing (BSS) as a service
Offered as a “pay as you use” service to large range of
customers
41. 4G Network
People want to play multimedia online games, watch
mobile TV, video calling, video sharing and that too at
high speed..
Market demands
LTE : Long Term Evolution
A standard for wireless communication of high-speed
data for mobile phones and data terminals.
42. NGN
Packet based network (IP) to support all
types of service from voice, data to video
Simpler
Cheap
Flexible
Deployment cost is huge
44. M-health
mHealth is a term used for the
practice of medicine and public
health, supported by mobile devices.
Telemedicine
45. FMC-Fixed Mobile Convergence
We are already in an era where Mobile Telephones has
crossed Fixed Telephones, so what is the solution?
One-phone one-number one bill
Connecting your mobile phone to fixed line operator
Enormous amount of spectrum is saved.
46. M2M
Machine to Machine (M2M) solutions connect
devices to back-end IT systems to enable the
collection and exchange of data. More basically,
it lets machines talk to each other, sending
information back and forth in real time, with little
or no human intervention.
47. M2M
How does it work?
M2M-enabled devices use GSM networks
to send messages, keywords or
commands to each other. These devices
can then translate the message and
perform a task. It also allows humans to
remotely monitor devices from
smartphones and other mobile equipment.
48. M2M
Who’s using this technology?
M2M technology can, and is ,being used by different
types of businesses and industries. Here are a few
examples:
Hospitals and healthcare practitioners are using M2M
solutions to monitor homecare patients.
Transportation companies are saving money and
reducing emissions using fleet tracking solutions.
Retailers are improving services and increasing sales
with mobile point-of-sale devices.
Utility companies are using smart meters to monitor
actual usage without costly site inspections.
Oil and gas companies are collecting well data
remotely, from anywhere in the world.
49. India
India is World’s single fastest growing
market
Prices are very low
Competition is very high (in some circle
12 operators competing)
53. Acknowledgement:
My previous company TechMahindra
My current company Cerillion Tech (I) Pvt.
Ltd.
Internet
Google for best search engine
Microsoft for PowerPoint application
