Reporters like me got excited about the prospect of what at first looked like a very futuristic new method of program delivery. That is, until we saw through the smoke and mirrors.
In fact, it wasn't a server automatically pumping digitized content to consumers. Nor was it a robotic arm plugging a VHS tape into a VCR at a headend (hey, it was the '90s). Instead, when trial customers placed their movie selections, the order was delivered to a computer in the hotel basement or CO, and some dude sitting at the terminal got off his chair, walked to a bank of VCRs and manually inserted "Die Hard" (or whatever available selection the customer had chosen) into the correct VCR. In the vernacular, this very complex and high-tech procedure came to be known as "sneakernet".
Indeed. While the Great and Powerful Oz may appear as a fire-breathing, God-like presence to the uninitiated, he's really probably just a short guy wearing Adidas.
So it is with electronic billing, it seems. Although e-billing is relatively high-tech on the customer-facing side, allowing subscribers to view and in some cases cross reference and pay their bills via an Internet browser, there's still a lot of manually intensive rekeying of data and duplication of tasks behind the scenes. In the cover story of this special issue of xchange focusing on billing and customer care, Chris Garifo looks at the ins and outs of e-billing and the importance of automating the back end of the process.
Also in this issue are special stories on e-bonding--or the lack of it--between DLECs and their ISP customers; how multiparty billing functionality opens new revenue streams for ICPs by giving them ownership of e-commerce transactions; a solution for the problem of multiple billing formats; as well as a look at using public computer terminals for billing and customer care.
Enjoy.
Paula Bernier
Executive Editor
