BILLING PACKAGE: Which One Is for You?

In this article and the continuing sequel to it in the next issue, Sachin Kelkar, business manager, PowerTel Boca, reviews various ISP billing packages available. Some of these are already being used in India. To warn you, just a few of them have Indian support. This series attempts to give a broad feature presentation of the packages.

Packages for National ISPs

This group includes packages for converged communications providers who bill for multi-services from various devices. Packages in this category range from around $1,00,000 and above including consulting, installation, and support. 

Arbor/BP

Company: Kenan Systems Corp. 

Web URL:http://www.kenan.com/ 

Comments: A billing and customer care system aimed at multi-service communications providers including large ISPs, CLECs, and Telcos. Arbor/BP has been developed using the essential concepts of flexibility, scalability, and rapid time to results and minimal investment risk. Arbor/BP offers advanced features such as customer analysis, robust rating, currency conversion, language options, and order management. These include all forms of wireline communications, mobile communications, broadband communications, and internet communications. Kenan is owned by Lucent.
In India, Tata Teleservices is using Kenan.

Ensemble

Company: AMDocs

Web URL:http://www.amdocs.com/prod_ensemble.htm 

Comments: Ensemble is a solution for fixed and mobile convergence for the telecommunications market. The Ensemble family of products supports convergent customer care and billing activities in single-service and convergent multi-service environments. Ensemble supports the full range of fixed line and mobile services, including local, cellular, paging, pre-paid, long distance, international, cable, Internet, and Voice over IP (VoIP). The system can be configured to support each carrier’s business model such as multi-service product packages, consolidated billing, and one-stop shop in both retail and wholesale billing environments. Ensemble is comprised of the following main modules: Customer Care, Usage Processing, Invoicing, Revenue Management, Network Resource Mediation, Sales and Marketing Management. 

CBP

Company: Saville Systems

Web URL:http://www.savillesys.com/ 

Comments: Saville CBP allows telecommunications and energy companies to integrate charges from multiple service providers onto one consumer invoice. Saville CBP has modules for customer care, service delivery, marketing and sales management, event processing, billing and post billing analysis. With these modules, Saville CBP creates new customized consumer accounts, verifies credit, and allows customer service representatives to answer questions and up sell new services. It alerts the third party provider, automates the connections, and confirms service delivery. It allows the marketing and sales departments to define and manage products, discounts, and market segmentation from an integrated database. CBP handles events like call detail records or one-time activation charges. It has a multi-switch interface, table-driven guiding parameters, flexible-rating schemes, and near real-time billing capabilities. Infranet

Company: Portal Software, Inc. 

Web URL:http://www.portal.com 

Comments: Portal’s Infranet allows ISPs and other providers of Internet-based services to effectively manage the core operations of their online business by responding to customer needs and market opportunities in real-time. Target markets include Internet access businesses, next-generation IP-based services such as Internet telephony and VPNs, other consumer and business services such as content management, Web hosting, online gaming and entertainment. Infranet supports the creation and management of customer accounts including development, pricing and provisioning of service offerings and activity tracking. It performs rating and billing and has modules for online registration, authentication and authorization including service provisioning, and reporting.
Portal enjoys good customer base in India. They include VSNL, Rolta, and ETH. 

IAF/3

Company: Solect

Web URL:http://www.solect.com/ 

Comments: IAF modules can be selected to create a custom-tailored solution for managing customer and service information. IAF provides flexibility to support launching and differentiating services, creating competitive pricing plans and responding to market trends. IAF includes modules for billing, usage rating, customer care, online registration, and service management. 

TotalBill

Company: Billing Concepts

Web URL:http://www.billingconcepts-.com/software/products/totalbill.htm

Comments: TotalBill provides daily income by automatically billing customers on the anniversary date of their subscriptions. TotalBill includes extensive tools for manual processing accounts when necessary. It includes the ability to add, change or cancel services; grant special credits; reprints invoices or reinstates suspended/cancelled service. TotalBill can be used to design custom packages and create special pricing. Credit card charges are automatically handled through one of several processing methods. It uses JAVA and Oracle and has Web interface. 

InterXpress Billing

Company: Siemens

Web URL:http://www.internet.-siemens.com/ISB/products/Billing.html 

Comments: InterXpress provides scalability and reliability through redundant Unix-based systems. Features include automated customer care through Web-based sign up; flexible rating engine to provide usage-based billing; real-time bill rating and online lookup; consolidated billing for services such as e-commerce with automatic credit card authorizations; data collection from multiple sources in multiple formats with varying frequency; billing for IP telephony, multimedia messaging, e-mail, Web hosting, VPN - directly via invoice, or debiting or sending billing data to an external billing system. Packages For Large Regional ISPs

Extent RBS

Company: Extent Technologies

Web URL:http://www.extent.com 

Comments: Extent RBS ISP combines user management, Web signup, billing, invoicing and many other features. Billing can be defined by time of day and day of week with Rs/hour and Rs/hr rates. Features include: debt limit (when reached, user is denied access); threshold for amounts to be postponed for next billing period; fixed charges for a period; charge one time set up fee; billing on daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually and annually invoicing or anniversary billing; bill VPN tunnel providers; bill outsourced services while allowing customers to bill their users internally; pre paid services, dealer management modules native Web server, password protected administration; Online graphs for daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and all time average; view online sessions with detailed information of User ID, IP, online time, origin and more; administrator reports delivered by e-mail on a schedule; run in a primary/backup environment of servers and mirror the backend database; enable timed account lockout when maximal password attempts is reached, four password encryption methods to choose from; user database is ODBC compliant; supports MS Access , MS SQL and Oracle; authenticate users from NT Domain or LDAP. It integrates RADIUS AAA server also and is JAVA based. Supports NT/Linux/Sun Solaris.

Enjoys good customer base in Class B and C ISPs. Customers include BSES Telecom Ltd, Manipal Control Data, Blazenet, and Southern Online.

Customer Information Management (CIM)

Company: Tech Applications, Inc.

Web URL:http://www.techapp.com/ 

Comments: CIM is an integrated suite of business applications that can manage and automate customer accounts, track and evaluate account usage, perform rating and billing operations, and generate detailed account activity reports. The CIM software suite includes three modules: set up, customer management, and billing. CIM offers call centre registration, real-time usage collection, online registration, real-time rating and billing, customer self care, mediation, provisioning, dial-up and dedicated access, VoIP and e-commerce, authentication, affinity groups, and flexible product management. The CIM billing module allows the creation of records of subscriber account activity and billing of customers by credit card, invoice, or an external billing organization. Tools are provided to tailor billing to customers’ needs. CIM has database partitioning for service outsourcing which allows a central provider to host virtual ISP’s and perform services for them while they can access only their own data. Prices range between $25,000-50,000 and above. 

SCBS ISP Admin and ISP 

Register

Company: Hurlnet

Web URL:http://www.hurl.net/ 

Comments: SCBS is an integration of ISP Register and ISP Admin, with the addition of the customer self-provisioning and account management group of Java Servlets. With SCBS, customers can view their time online, view their invoices, update their billing information, and change their password and self-provision available packages. ISP Admin is an integrated package designed for ISPs. It works seamlessly with ISP Register to automate the signup, billing and customer support processes. It can run on Windows, X-Windows or a Network Computer. ISP Admin supports an unlimited number of billing plans including bill to a master account, bill by usage from RADIUS logs, bill customers by e-mail, paper invoice or by credit card or it can use Cybercash to bill through the Internet. It can do batch credit card billing with IC Verify. Costs $7,000 for 10,000 users. Emerald Billing

Company: IEA Software

Web URL:http://www.emerald.iea.-com/ 

Comments: Emerald, a management suite for small and medium ISPs, is built around scaleable client/server technology. It makes generous use of multiple discount schemes and allows for many pricing options. It has a GUI that enables employees to perform functions without needing UNIX root or NT Admin passwords, rights, or training. The concept of Master Billing Records allows for easy consolidation of large customer accounts. Technical staff is given immediate access to current and historical online information with complete call logging and RADIUS disconnect causes. Customer service is aided by historical reporting of open and closed call incidents associated to both the customer and the Master Billing Record.

Accounting has access to pertinent customer records. The system allows single entry of credit card information with batch account update to several popular credit card systems. Requires MS SQL. They have their own RADIUS Server. The cost works out to be around $8,485 for 10,000 subscribers, plus $1,495 for maintenance and variable pricing for support.

Eclipse

Company: Suntech Systems

Web URL:http://www.suntech.com/eclipsepgs/eclipseoverview.htm 

Comments: With Eclipse, companies providing Internet services can set up a rules-based billing system. Product highlights include: cycle-based billing; integration with IIS for transaction tracking and WWW/FTP usage-based billing; real-time balance and transaction inquiry information; credit card support for real-time processing and authorization; online customer inquiry and maintenance tools. Customer’s can view balances, current bill, transaction history, or usage statistics via the Web. It has customer trouble calls tracking and resolution module. Uses MS SQL Server. Costs $11,000 for 10,000 users. 

Optigold ISP

Company: Data Point

Web URL:http://www.data-point.com/products/isp/ 

Comments: Optigold ISP runs on Macintosh, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows 3.1. It can handle an infinite number of billing cycles and automatically bill credit cards and debit bank accounts. It interfaces with PCAuthorize, PCAuthorize Hub, MacAuthorize, MacAuthorize Hub, Cardservice, Cardservice DOS, PC Charge, Cybercash, AuthorizeNet, ICVerify, PayPro, eFunds or PTC. Excessive time-usage can be automatically billed. Contact manager can be used by sales associates to compile an extensive contact database. It is pre-installed with over 250 reports. The trouble-shooter can compile a database of problems or configuration solutions for tech support. Commissions due to sales people are automatically tracked. Invoice and payment deletes from the system are logged as are e-mails sent to customers. Optigold ISP keeps track of software and equipment in the office space. To-do’s can be assigned to employees. Text-based ads can be added to the end of invoices to put messages to customers there. It has a built-in timecard system that allows employees to clock in or out from any computer on the network. Access can be controlled on an employee-level or by implementing a grouping type scheme. Cost $10,000 for 10,000 subscribers.PRISM

Company: ISP Power

Web URL:http://www.isppower.com/ 

Comments: ISP Power provides Windows-based integrated billing and customer management software solutions designed for ISPs and Internet businesses with subscriber management. There are two products available–PRISM and ISPPower. PRISM offers high levels of power and flexibility across a geographic area and is available by using either MS SQL or Oracle.

ISPPower is designed for smaller companies and uses MS Access. Features include: Web interface to allow customers to check account, usage, and billing information, and to update contact and service information; server control add-on to automate adding, deleting, and suspending accounts; auto subscription add-on to provide sign up via the Web or through distributed CD-ROM. New customers can make the order, pay for their service through a credit card online, and sign up for a service–all without any contact with the billing staff. 

RODOPI

Company: Intranet Software

Web URL:http://www.rodopi.com/ 

Comments: RODOPI is a comprehensive billing/management software suite for ISPs. It features online subscription, billing, bank reconciliation, customer support, e-mail to customers, online statements review, RADIUS interface, automated account set up on variety of Unix and NT-based servers, universal billing interface to accept usage information from variety of UNIX and NT servers and more. RODOPI is completely Web-enabled.