Livewire: The Communications, Media and Entertainment Blog

The world of acquisitions and mergers has not left the billing package domain alone. A company invests heaps of dollars to create a market leading billing package and from there the package evolves not by itself but again supported by investments from the parent company. This is a must for any billing package to grow as the market leader in its domain. But, all of a sudden, it undergoes a turmoil and gets sold out to a new owner. Before you conclude on your feelings towards the packages, I would like to tell you that this seems to be a very common thing in this part of technology world.

Oracle Communications BRM, a billing package offering from Oracle for CSPs was once with Portal Software. It was called Portal Infranet and renamed to Oracle BRM. Oracle's acquisition of Portal Software was part of its strategy to create an end to end oracle stack for a CSP. Portal Infranet has been famous with Data Billing all the while and now Oracle BRM can also do the mobile prepaid rating effectively. Oracle has also acquired eServe Global recently, a Prepaid Charging company ( http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/076239 ) . We have to see how Oracle marries it with their current BSS stack offering.

Comverse Kenan story is also interesting. It has changed 3 hands in last 10 years. Oldest hand that I am aware of is Lucent Technologies where Kenan was marketed as Arbor BP, part of the BSS stack with other components like Arbor OM (Order Management) in place. It was bought by CSG from Lucent, a US based company and got rechristened as Kenan BP. Later on, CSG sold out Kenan BP to Comverse. Kenan FX, the current version of post paid billing system has been packaged into Comverse One, which has the Real Time Billing System, Mediation and CRM capabilities. The Kenan billing team has been largely successful in handling these transitions seamlessly to its huge customer base across the globe.

There has been news in the market in the last months that Intec is being bought out by CSG (http://www.intecbilling.com/24sep2010.aspx). We have to see how this transpires for the leading Intec Singl.eView, Intermediate and Interconnect billing packages. Intec has a very good client base and CSG is quite strong in a few Goes which could make this acquisition work out very well for both the companies. We only have to wait and watch.

Have you been watching these dynamics? What is your understanding?

Posted by Prasanth Kumar at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my last month's blog I wrote about Billing Transformation being one of the top 3 priorities in 2010 for the carriers. This month we will talk about the technology that will matter the most for mobile phone users in the next couple of years.

While Japan and South Korea are at the forefront in turning mobile phones into digital wallets and Europe following their way, how it would turn out in US is still murky. Advantages of mobile payments are obvious. You don't need to carry credit/debit cards anymore as all your payment information is going to be tied to your mobile. You can manage one or all your cards with one phone call. It helps merchants to collect more money from consumers which in turn bring down the prices. In developing nations, where majority of the population don't have credit cards and bank accounts, mobile payments concept is more obvious.

Adoption in US has been slow mainly due to challenges around fraud prevention, regulatory issues, and cooperation between all the parties. Multiple parties need to agree up on how to split the pie. You have to get the device manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola to build NFC technology into mobile phones; you have to get carrier networks to enable your mobile phones to make payments and then bill you for those charges; alternatively you have to get credit card networks and card issuers to issue chips that replaces plastic cards to put in your phone; you have to get payment terminal providers like VeriFone to enable NFC technology; and you have to get the retails like Starbucks, and Target to participate.

In Japan many of above are owned by same company which made it easier. In US, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are exploring a joint venture to develop a payment service which will open new revenue streams for them whereas WellsFargo and Visa launched a mobile payment pilot to test consumer mobile payments and services. Just like you buy ringtones or music for your phone, you can wave your mobile device in front of a NFC (Near Field Communication) device at Starbucks and buy mocha, and you'll get billed by your network carrier, totally cutting the credit card companies and the banks out of the loop. Just like plastic replaced paper, these mobile devices are going to replace plastic.

Turning these pilots into rollouts and upgrading terminals at retail stations, banks & payments networks distributing chips, alternatively telecom carriers rolling out payment services will not happen overnight. But we have gotten to a point where it looks like we may get an adoption of winning technology soon.

Posted by Shree Kodavatiganti at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the last one year there has been huge rush of App stores. According to recent WIP report there are 94 App stores, up from 85 last month. Every operator either in emerging or developed market wants to leverage the huge potential of "Data Revenue" and move from dumb pipe to smart pipe scenario. To realize these dreams they are moving towards adopting/developing app stores. Operators are following routes of developing app store in house, choosing white labeled app store or partnering with independent app stores to port in the applications. The first two options leads to app store with intention of creating differentiation and realizing potential of new revenue stream. However the third option is mainly directed towards being "Me too" player. Also it is half hearted attempt of realizing data potential.

The operators use key parameter- "number of applications" while selecting vendor/partner for the application store. But it is interesting to note that there is no definite co-relation between number of apps and possible downloads being generated. GetJar which has more than 70,000+ app and games is seeing 3 million download/day on the other hand Nokia which is having around 1/7^th of the App as that of GetJar (around 10000) is seeing close to 2.5 million download per day. This comparison clearly demonstrates the lack of correlation.

In fact it is increasingly being argued by off late that having more app gives rise to problem with discoverability of App and less customer satisfaction. So it is imperative that successful app store to have;

·         Discoverability - Apps accessible within 2-3 clicks from home page

·         Portfolio management - User ratings, recommendations based on user history, clear categorization of Apps

·         Marketing- Mode to let know the users of the latest apps which are relevant to them based on consumer profiling

·         Ease of use- Simple process to download apps, Seamless integration with billing system and prevent users from information overload

Further, more importantly the speed of network connectivity. Who wants to spend 15-20 minutes to download a simple app?

 

Posted by Pramod S.N. at 5:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In the recent weeks, I have seen a lot of noise being made around implications of Bill Shock Rules for Communications industry in U.S & Europe markets.

Few days ago, a major mobile operator in one of European Union (EU)  countries implemented a BSS solution from a leading billing product vendor, meeting the mandatory EU regulations; much in advance to the stipulated timelines for all EU operators. This has been achieved by implementing real time rating & charging solution for mobile voice & data usage.

This year EU has mandated telecommunications providers to ensure better control over usage cost incurred by mobile data roamers within EU. It stipulates service providers to notify their subscribers through text message as & when threshold on data roaming usage charges is reached.  This will avoid big shockers for customers when they see their monthly phone bills.
Taking clues from EU, FCC (Federal Communications Commission - USA) is seriously considering putting in similar rules of alerting consumers on potential high usage charges in bill. This is in lieu of increase in number of large scale law suits in US involving major communication providers.   In US market, there has been significant increase in number of customer complaints getting bills in thousands outside their contract usage due to their unawareness of associated charges on voice or data roaming or not knowing when they exceeded their monthly contract usage limits. Hence, the proposed legislation requires service providers to notify subscribers when they reach 80% of their monthly credit limits and taking customer consent before charging for additional usage charges outside their contracts.

However, simply putting legislations & enforcing CSPs to control subscriber bills may not work.  In a competitive market world scenario like today, these rules might counter fire & add more to technology costs. Also, Over-usage is just one-dimension of Bill Shocks.  It has other dimensions like wrong billing charges, excessive rental charges, charging one time charges outside their contractual plans, duplicate usage or rental charges, etc. There are the times when subscribers do not get to see their phone bills for months together and end up getting bill on arrears running into thousands......

Posted by Shivakumar Ramachandran at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)