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

5.
Service provider

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

17.
Interconnect Billing
Bill inter-operator connections.
Rating, Discounting, Billing,
Reporting
POI, Trunk, Switch
Carrier 1 POI Carrier 2

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

23.
Billing Pillars
CRM
Product Management
Resource Management
Rating
Billing

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

35.
Into the Future

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

43.
Convergence
Domain convergence
BSS-OSS convergence
Service convergence
Pre-paid Post-paid convergence
Network convergence

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)

50.
Opportunities
Operators Integrator
Airtel Tech Mahindra
Idea IBM
Vodafone Infosys
BSNL Wipro
BSS Consulting
Amdocs Accenture
Convergys Deloitte
CSG Systems Capgemini
 Cerillion Technologies KPMG

51.
Q/A

52.
Thank You

53.
Acknowledgement:
 My previous company TechMahindra
 My current company Cerillion Tech (I) Pvt.
Ltd.
 Internet
 Google for best search engine
 Microsoft for PowerPoint application