Face of revenue assurance changing
WeDo’s Alvaro Ribeiro discusses why new services are changing the way operators view revenue assurance and the challenges they raise for telcos and suppliers. To view on iPhone or iPad click here.
Minutes, seconds – who’s counting?
For some strange reason, I was under the impression that most CSPs generally aspired to one-second billing and this was pretty much the world standard. Apparently, I have been totally misled, according to reports out of Australia. The Age newspaper today ran a story that Telstra is moving to one minute billing blocks later this [...]
Carrier billing for content doomed?
Carrier billing for content services is doomed in advanced markets because of fundamental conflicts of interest, and standalone payment specialists are best placed to handle charging. That’s the view from mobile content entrepreneur Simon Buckingham, speaking to Telecoms.com. His latest venture ‘Appitalism’ seeks to combine social networking and the application store model. The gist of Buckingham’s [...]
Buyout buoys big biller
When I heard CSG Systems International, Inc. was buying interconnect and retail billing company Intec, my ancient memory cells twigged. CSG, well known as a provider of customer and billing management solutions to satellite broadcasting and cable operators in North America, is not that well known outside its key market. Intec, on the other hand, [...]
Smart Meters not so smart
Don’t think for one minute that CSPs have billing and, more particularly, ‘bill shock’ issues all to themselves. The move to ‘smart metering’ for some utility companies in the USA is proving to be a minefield. According to Wikipedia, a smart meter is an advanced meter (usually an electrical meter) that identifies consumption in more [...]
Cloud goes app crazy!
Google looks to do for the ‘cloud’ what Apple successfully did for the mobile world by setting up a Cloud-based app store. But that could be easier said than done.
‘Creative billing’ is alive and well!
Who says creativity in billing is dead? ‘Creative pricing’ strategies uncovered by Australia’s consumer watchdog Choice, has put paid to that.
Telco billing’s last hurrah?
If telecommunications service providers continue to believe that they own their customers because they have a ‘billing’ or ‘customer care’ relationship with them they are in for a really big shock. Those massive investments in billing, payments and customer relationship management systems in the past may soon be of little value unless there is a [...]
Pay your bill, then pay the fee!
An unusually worded press release emanated this week from Telstra in Australia titled “Customers can choose free options to avoid new billing fees; millions exempt.” But it’s not what I seems. In what can only be described as brazen by envious operators in many other countries, Telstra is imposing extra fees on customers depending on [...]
Billing used to put the bling into telecoms, now it’s only responsible for the occasional shock
Billing used to be so important for telecoms service providers that it lived in its own domain with direct links to Finance and IT. But how times have changed. Billing has been banished back to the back room again where it’s just part of the broader BSS group. What’s happened?