The Book of Billing for Telecommunications

Published by: Tarifica at PBI Media LLC

Published: Mar. 1, 2002

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 About this Book

1.2 What is so-o-o-o Interesting About Billing?

1.3 The Telecommunications Business

1.3.1 Deregulation and Competition

1.3.2 Massive Rate of Change

1.3.2.1 Mergers, Disposals and Acquisitions

1.3.2.2 New Technology, Products and Services

1.3.2.3 Growth

1.3.3 Customer Service Focus

1.3.4 Interconnect Agreements

1.3.5 Convergence

1.3.6 Internet

1.4 Challenges for New Entrants

1.4.1 New Technology Licence Costs

1.4.2 Choice of Platform, Products and Services

1.4.2.1 Forecasting

1.4.2.2 Technology changing faster than plans allowed

1.4.3 Customer Acquisition

1.4.3.1 Creditworthiness vs. volumes

1.4.3.2 Customer Service Considerations

1.4.4 System Selection and Implementation

1.4.4.1 Requirements Definition

1.4.4.2 Flexibility and Scalability

1.4.5 Resources and Expertise

2 The Business Processes of Billing

2.1 Why Talk About Processes?

2.1.1 Strategy and Process Definition

2.1.2 Process Maps Provide Information

2.1.3 The Need for Business Rules

2.2 Setting Up Customers & Managing Orders

2.2.1 Order Management

2.2.2 Service Activation

2.2.3 Fulfilment

2.2.4 Billing Accounts

2.3 Billing 26

2.3.1 Recurring Subscription, Access Fee or Rental

2.3.2 Billable Events or Usage Charges

2.3.2.1 Making a Call

2.3.3 Credits

2.4 Retail Billing

2.4.1 Historical Billing Methods

2.4.2 Cycle Billing

2.4.3 Bill Production

2.5 Interconnect Billing and Settlements

2.5.1 Interconnect Rating

2.5.1.1 Interconnect Rating Factors

2.5.1.2 Least Cost Routing

2.5.2 Direct and Cascade Settlement

2.5.2.1 Cascade - Incoming or Incoming Transit

2.5.2.2 Cascade - Outgoing

2.5.2.3 Direct Settlement - Outgoing

2.6 Wholesale Billing

2.6.1 Indirect Access to Our Network

2.6.2 Indirect Access and Calling Cards

2.6.3 Resellers and Virtual Carriers

2.6.4 Basis for Billing Wholesale

2.6.5 Wholesaler’s Retail Billing

2.6.6 Quality of Service Billing

2.6.7 Interconnect for Wholesalers

2.7 Accounts Receivable and Collections

2.7.1 Accounts Receivable

2.7.2 Collections

2.7.2.1 The Cheque Was In the Post

2.7.2.2 Automated Collection

2.7.3 Restricting Access

2.8 Revenue Assurance

2.8.1 The Causes of Revenue Loss

2.8.2 The Objectives of Revenue Assurance

2.8.3 Validating Accuracy

2.8.4 Fraud

2.8.4.1 Subscription Fraud

2.8.4.2 Premium Rate Services Fraud

2.8.5 File Controls

2.8.6 Process Controls

3 Billing Systems and Billing Data

3.1 System Components

3.2 Billing Data Sources

3.2.1 Customer Account Data

3.2.2 Product Pricing Reference Data

3.2.3 CDR Generation

3.2.4 CDR Stacking and Collection

3.2.5 Recurring Charges

3.2.6 One-Time Charges and Credits

3.3 Mediation

3.3.1 Selection and File Controls

3.3.2 Validation and Re-formatting

3.3.3 Consolidation and Duplication: Mediation Rules

3.4 Rating and Pricing

3.4.1 Guiding and Account Identification

3.4.2 Rating

3.4.2.1 Data

3.4.2.2 Other Usage Events

3.4.2.3 Applying Rating Factors

3.4.2.4 Rating Table Dimensions

3.4.2.5 Split Rating

3.4.3 Rating Discounts

3.4.4 Pre-Paid Service Rating

3.4.5 Regulatory Issues

3.5 Billing and Invoicing Operations

3.5.1 Controls

3.5.2 Billing Cycles

3.5.3 Bill Production

3.6 Retail Billing

3.6.1 Aggregation and the Bill Pool

3.6.2 Billing Discounts

3.6.2.1 Tiered Discounts

3.6.2.2 Tapered Discounts

3.6.2.3 Free Usage

3.6.2.4 “Friends and Family”

3.6.2.5 Other Discounts

3.6.3 Bill Formats & Messages

3.6.4 Billing as the Differentiator

3.7 Wholesale and Interconnect Billing System

3.7.1 Interconnect

3.7.1.1 Reconciliation Estimates

3.7.1.2 Interconnect- Incoming and Transit

3.7.1.3 Interconnect- Outgoing

3.7.2 Wholesale

3.8 Accounting and Collections

3.8.1 Accounts Receivable and Remittance Processing

3.8.2 Exceptions

3.8.3 “The Cheque Is In The Post”

3.8.4 Bad Debts

3.8.5 Pre-Paid Services

3.8.6 General Ledger

4 Other Systems That Interact With Billing 68

4.1 Customer Care and the Call Centre

4.1.1 Billing and Accounts Enquiries

4.1.2 Order Management

4.1.3 Contact History

4.1.4 Complaints and Fault Management

4.1.5 Problem Resolution

4.1.6 Customer Changes

4.2 Call Centre Systems

4.3 Product Management

4.4 Service Activation

4.5 Reporting and Management Information

4.5.1 Operational Reporting

4.5.2 Data Warehouses and Data Mining

4.5.3 Churn

5 Choosing and Implementing a Billing System

5.1 Billing Only, or Something Wider?

5.2 Requirements Definition

5.3 Buy, Build or Outsource?

5.3.1 Buy

5.3.1.1 Advantages

5.3.1.2 Disadvantages

5.3.2 Build

5.3.2.1 Advantages

5.3.2.2 Disadvantages

5.3.3 Outsource

5.3.3.1 Advantages

5.3.3.2 Disadvantages

5.4 Planning

5.5 Testing

5.6 Acceptance Criteria

5.7 Migration Projects

5.7.1 Data Challenges

5.8 Resourcing

5.8.1 Permanent Staff

5.8.2 Contractors

5.8.3 Consultancies

6 Recent and Emerging Changes in Billing Practice

6.1 Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP)

6.2 Customer Self-Care

6.3 Hot Billing and Real-Time Billing

6.3.1 Hot Billing

6.3.2 (Near-) Real-Time Billing

6.4 Billing Convergence and Integration

6.5 Billing for Internet Services

6.6 3G and UMTS: Charging for Content

6.7 Quality of Service Pricing

6.8 The Impact of Commoditisation

6.9 Reducing the Cost of Billing

Appendix: Glossary of terms

Abstract

Who should buy this Book?

About MarketResearch.com
MarketResearch.com is an online aggregator selling over 160,000 market research reports, company profiles and country profiles from over 600 research firms. Our reports will provide you with the critical business and competitive intelligence you need for strategic planning and marketing research. Coverage includes the US, UK, Europe, Asia and global markets.