Telecom Billing Software: Nuts And Bolts

Posted by thizzfacedisco on August 28, 2011

The telecom billing software is a important component in the set of systems that modern telecom services providers need to deliver the service. It has very little to do with actually delivering the service or maintaining the service, but a lot to do with collecting the revenues that keep the ISP running. With a wide range of service offerings across various media, flexible and robust systems are useful.

Today, there are nuances and challenges in almost every service that is delivered to the customer. Though the local calls are free for a flat monthly rate, your typical land line phone can offer other services too. Things like long distance calls, international calls, voice mail services, etc. Each of these has a different rate and billing structure. So your billing system needs to handle these correctly.

In the developed world, it is not uncommon for the new mobile cellular data plans to come with some data limit followed by billing for every additional kilobyte that is used in the network. In the developing nations, there are mobile pre-paid plans that run for a couple of weeks and are then stopped. Keeping track of all these plans and services and ensuring that every one of the transactions is accounted for is just what billing solutions are designed to do.

It is clear that billing systems are great for telecom operators and they cover everything from traditional phone lines to the latest data plans on 3G mobile networks. But there are some costs and implementation considerations that one needs to be cognizant of while installing these systems. Everything from hardware to customer care services need to be looked at.

First it is the telecom billing software hardware and a stable, scalable and flexible software for accurate billing. The next is to determine billing cycles. Really good billing systems may be able to maintain individual billing cycles, but the most common ones tend to have pre-defined billing cycles that need to be agreed on.

The next aspect of the billing solution is the distribution and collection. ISP needs to distribute the bills and ensure proper collection of the bills. Bill distribution means printing bills and mailing them. On the other hand, collection will require a good network that allows users to pay the bills conveniently. The use of online billing and payment is now making life easy for both the ISP and the customer.

The final spoke in the billing solution wheel is the billing inquiry support system. Customers can be billed incorrectly due to errors from the ISP or software problems. Alternative, the customer can interpret the bills incorrectly. Whatever the problem, the issue need a resolution. The customer care department need to address these.

All in all, telecom billing OSS is vital for modern telecom services providers. With the varied customer requirements and market demands of variations in plans, a robust billing system is mandatory to track usage, bill customers and collect payments. As an ISP, the whole telecom billing software has to be well thought of and just investing in software is not enough.

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