By Jesse Cryderman

Gone are the days when a telco’s role was simply to provide reliable voice service and send a bill at the end of the month. Now, carriers are required to manage greater and greater amounts of data on their wireless networks while a wider variety of devices are activated everyday, and consumers desire greater functionality and app services.

While parsing out the processes that are required to enable today’s networks, questions of new billing and charging models naturally arise: Can traditional systems keep up with the tidal wave of demand? Are there ways to monetize new services that require real-time billing and charging? What are some innovative solutions?

Several B/OSS vendors believe the time is now for carriers to move to a converged billing and charging platforms that encompass both pre- and post-paid customer bases, and offer flexibility for both carriers and customers.

Pipeline recently spoke with a pioneer in the field of billing and charging, Matrixx Software CEO Dave Labuda, as well as Scott Rice, VP Production Billing with Sprint to get both the vendor and carrier perspectives, and shed some light on real-time billing and charging.

Dave Labuda, Founder and CEO, Matrixx Software

Pipeline:

Is there a need for a departure from traditional batch billing, and why?

Dave Labuda:

We've entered a perfect storm brought on by a number of market forces, including an explosion of smartphones and data services, the end of "all-you-can-eat" billing, and a need for greater transparency in billing. This is coupled with an increase in market competitiveness, and as a result, carriers are looking for ways to converge subscriber bases onto a single platform.

P:

How are carriers currently responding to this need?

DL:

Various stop-gap, byte-counter methods, but they are actively seeking solutions. Pre-paid subscribers are processed in real-time and post-paid are processed with classic batch billing.

P:

How urgent is the need for real-time billing and charging?

 

P:

What are the requirements of the next generation of charging?

DL:

There are three fundamental requirements. Flexibility: all the cool configurability, device models, and pricing options. Predictability: A system that offers guaranteed performance, uptime, and latency. Historically flexibility and predictability are at odds. Then you have Scalability, which requires a whole different set of [technology].

P:

How does such a system benefit operators?

DL:

Carriers are trying to push up the value chain. As soon as an operator is asking a broker for 3rd party goods, they are losing money. And they are keenly aware of this. A byte is not a byte. Blind byte accounting and charging doesn't measure usage in any meaningful way.