Key Information About Telecom Billing Systems
One of the most important aspects of a successful telecommunications business is the billing system. With the advancement in technology, there are many options and alternatives for the customers to choose from. With increased competition, it is becoming mandatory for the telecom service providers to offer these services. Hence, the telecom billing software needs to be robust enough to bill services, distribute bills and collect payments for all the variations correctly.
The customer demands are quite varied on a global scale depending on the advanced technology, infrastructure and standard of living of the people. The developed nations with very high wire line penetrations have a strong wireless demand. Here, the bundled services are quite popular. Customers opt for landline, data as well as video services wherever possible to reduce the cost. With each service having some variations of its own, the billing system needs to be quite flexible to handle all combinations.
In the mobile phone domain, there are quite a few alternatives. The modern phones are mini computing machines which can support voice calls, messaging and even internet browsing and GPS. Different phone models have different features and hence different user traffic. The billing solutions need to adapt to these traffic patterns and bill accordingly.
Lastly, in the developing nations with fast growing mobile markets, the operators come out with offers for very short time durations like over the weekend. In such cases, the billing solution needs to be able to adapt to the ever changing rates and the fickle needs of the customers. This again requires a robust billing system.
Now that we understand the demands from a billing solution, we can look at how these solutions work. The sales person would activate an account based on the services subscribed by the customer. The billing system will now interact with the network to measure the usage patterns of the user and apply the respective rates. Typically, the billing is batch processed on particular dates to keep the computations relatively simple.
After the billing is calculated, the bills need to be created and sent to the customer. The first challenge is that the customer must receive the billing information. Traditionally, postal services used to deliver the bills. Today with the internet, the billing information can be obtained online also.
The customer should be given enough time to pay the bill. The modern service providers allow the customer to pay the bill by cash at the counter, by checks, through bank transfers or online using credit cards. The payment received from these various sources must capture and recorded accurately by the billing system.
It is clear that a telecom OSS is quite an important part of the telecom business. There are many aspects that need to be factored in to the billing. The solution needs to strike a balance between the varied customer needs and appropriate billing and payment collection for the service provider.
