Package creatively and bill flexibly goes the mantra of service providers seeking real revenue opportunities beyond commodity access.
Enable business and end users to pay for Internet protocol (IP) services based on usage and/or content, and demand will boom. This formula has gained consensus. As a result, billing and accounting systems have been the focus of a great deal of attention throughout the service provider community.
But let's take a step back.
Even the most sophisticated billing system may only be as effective as the information it is fed. Unless privy to a full range of raw service usage data and capable of tapping into the underlying infrastructure based on individual users, today's billing systems are fairly limited in their ability to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end service control.
Moving forward, many service providers will be looking for a way to realize the business advantage of offering value-added IP services under a policy-driven, user-based usage- and/or content-based billing scenario. Synchronicity among data collection, policy enforcement and billing functions remains the missing link in service providers' strategy for sustained growth and business success.
The segment of the service provider community that stands to gain the most from this synchronicity is the emerging class of Virtual Internet service providers (ISPs).
Already a significant element in the European market and a considerable one in the United States, Virtual ISPs have no physical facilities of their own, but lease them to offer consumer and business IP services. Some Virtual ISPs own and employ standard or proprietary billing systems; others have no billing systems whatsoever, outsourcing billing to specialized service bureaus. By their very nature, none have direct access to the full range of application usage data required for complete flexibility in creatively packaging and collecting on IP services.
Carriers can realize a tremendous revenue opportunity by moving to bridge this gap for their Virtual ISP customers. To do so, carriers require a scalable, policy-based Internet business solution that accomplishes three basic tasks:
Data collection--The carrier solution must poll any number of networks, applications and mediation devices to glean every sort of IP service usage information.
Policy application--The carrier solution should interpret the data it collects, applying multiple if/then qualifications. In most cases, these policies should be adjustable by the Virtual ISP customer without carrier intervention. Virtual ISPs are demanding the time efficiencies, flexibility and empowerment delivered via self-management functionality.
Reporting (accounting)--The carrier solution must communicate its findings in a format acceptable to the full range of standard and proprietary billing systems. Furthermore, the carrier solution must be capable of reporting this information in real time as frequently as requested in an electronic format.
Together, these three functions make it far more compelling than in the past to convince a Virtual ISP to buy billing as an outsourced service from a wholesale service provider, such as a local exchange carrier (LEC). The real carrier breakthrough would be a combined, three-in-one solution consisting of a single, integrated platform that delivers all three functions.
The bottom line is that Virtual ISPs and other service providers are paying anywhere from $1 to $3 per user for sophisticated billing systems. And, in many cases, they aren't able to exploit the full potential of those systems because of a missing link--network-side application usage data.
With so much invested, Virtual ISPs are hungry to partner with carriers who can ensure greater returns.
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Dave Curley is vice president of marketing with Bridgewater Systems Corp., Kanata, Ontario. He can be reached at 613-591-6655. |
