Nortel's Personal Internet

The dotcom burst has happened and everywhere there is a

search to rediscover new business routes and avenues. Nonetheless, several

analysts suggest that the content boom is a major new market phenomenon. They go

on to add that bandwidth alone is insufficient to address the growing demand,

and new network and content intelligence is needed. Reports from various

research organizations suggest this. According to Ovum Ltd., the next generation

of Internet services is set to explode to over $40 billion by 2006.

Additionally, Morgan Stanley estimates the market opportunity for content

networking products and services will grow to over $22 billion by 2004. A study

by IDC indicates that delivery of new content is expected to increase in line

with the Asia Pacific region’s high Internet growth rates. IDC expects ISP

revenue in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) to increase from approximately $6.1

billion in 1999 to $22 billion by 2004. Gartner predicts the number of Internet

users in the Asia Pacific region will increase from 72 million in 2001 to 188

million by 2004, encouraged in part by the wider availability of local content.

And, this is the reason why Cisco and Nortel have taken the lead to address the

emerging markets.

What is Personalized Internet? It’s a new layer of network

intelligence that is aware of the preferences of the Internet users and the

attributes of content being requested. It’s believed that incorporating this

intelligence into the content delivery process maximizes revenue opportunities

for the service providers, who will be able to deliver a user-customized,

content-rich, secure and high-performance web experience virtually

"anytime, anywhere" and on any browser capable device. According to

Dominic Orr, president, content networking, Nortel Networks, "Nortel’s

Personal Internet initiative leverages the mobility of the wireless Internet,

the reach of the local Internet and the capacity of the optical Internet to

unlock the true value of the Internet for both consumers and service providers

in Asia".

Nortel Networks Personal Internet Initiative

Nortel’s new portfolio of Personal Internet products, which

are claimed to help application, hosting and service providers, content

publishers and enterprises, consists of a new suite of hardware and software

offerings. This includes Nortel Networks Shasta Personal Content Portal, a

platform-independent software engine that will enable delivery of customized

content services for subscribers and content providers. Nortel Networks Alteon

Personal Content Director, the first content-aware request router that will

deliver true user-proximity routing to optimum content sites in real time, based

on network load, request attributes and proximity intelligence.

Nortel Networks Alteon Personal Content Cache is a

high-performance caching system for web and streaming media content. Nortel

Networks Alteon Content Distribution Manager, a highly scalable content

management appliance that will provide simplified management, accounting and

control of distributed content. Nortel Networks Alteon 780 web switch, a family

of high-capacity, high-density carrier class content switching systems for

high-volume Internet data center environments.

Personal Internet is willing to create new Internet control

points at the subscriber and content edges, which are best suited for seeing

users session information, making content routing decisions, enforcing and

applying user and content routing policy, and deciding the best content and from

where to serve it. Nortel Networks, at the moment, is very uniquely positioned

to deliver the Personal Internet primarily because of Alteon and Shasta. On one

hand, Nortel Networks’ Shasta 5000 Broadband Service Node, Shasta Personal

Content Portal, is a platform-independent content delivery software engine that

lets service providers control content access, steer subscribers and deliver

self provisioned services on a per subscriber basis. On the other hand, as a key

requirement in the delivery of personalized Internet services is real time

knowledge of the distance between a user and the requested content, its Alteon

Personal Content Director will go beyond current DNS-based request routing

implementations to deliver true, user-proximity routing based on real time

network path reliability and load. Further, a patent pending adaptive content

routing technology will enable real time performance mapping of all content

delivery paths relative to the user. To ease management and distribution of

static and streaming media content, its Alteon Personal Content Cache and Alteon

Content Distribution Manager are handy. Alteon Personal Content Cache is a

high-performance cache system with advanced capabilities, such as prioritized

content pinning and concurrent live stream splitting and caching. Its Content

Distribution Manager is an advanced content distribution and management platform

that enables sophisticated content distribution, global distribution, global

accounting and billing features.

Nortel Networks has also introduced the Nortel Networks

Alteon 780 line of large-scale, carrier-class web switching systems as an

extension to the current Nortel Networks Alteon 700 series of Internet data

center web switches. The 780 line claims to deliver a high-density,

high-capacity (256 Gbps) and highly resilient web switching capability for data

centers because it combines the integrated layers 2 and 3 switching, and routing

with comprehensive layers 4 to 7 content intelligent switching applications.

Alteon 780 is based on purpose built Nortel Networks Alteon WebIC network

processing ASICs, and supports the full suite of award winning Nortel Networks

Alteon Web OS traffic management software.

The introduction of this new suite of content networking

products and patent pending technology at the subscriber and content edges by

Nortel, is to extend its leadership position in another market–personalized

Internet services–in addition to that of optical, wireless, local Internet and

e-business. This route, through a new layer of content intelligence, delivers

value-added services in addition to the existing infrastructure.

Ch. Srinivas Rao

What is the Problem?

Let us start with stating the obvious. Most of the billing systems were

designed and built two or three decades ago. Much water has flowed under the

telecom bridge since then. Rigid regulations have given way to intense

competition. Telecom networks are jumping onto the IP bandwagon. And then there

is the ubiquitous Internet. With carriers moving into new vistas, offering whole

new breeds of services, these legacy billing systems (centralized and

batch-oriented) are not very easily changed, and as a result have become

expensive to maintain and modify, to adapt to the demands imposed by new

services. In other words, billing is no longer about sending an invoice and

collecting payment.

As the world of IP services continues to expand at a break-neck speed and

service providers look at offering new services for broadband, intelligent

networks, wireless, cable and Internet, it necessitates the need for new



billing systems to collect payment for these new revenue opportunities. This is
exactly where billing systems, hitherto considered unglamorous and simple, don a

new robe: a critical tool for marketing, customer care and revenue assurance.

What’s more, it is the billing and customer care infrastructure, which is

going to be the key differentiator in any service



delivery.

Billing, for long, has been defined as gathering data for customer use,

provisioning features, calculating costs and invoicing for payment. Though these

still remain the essential characteristic traits of a billing system, any

service provider worth its salt would vouch for the fact that billing has

emerged as a core function. Thanks to deregulation and technology, companies now

provide services beyond their core competency. With the demarcation line

blurring between wireless and wireline, service providers in the country are

foraying into multiple market segments, with multiple services. Billing comes to

the fore here as these new business opportunities are more challenging to

support and operate.

Emerging Killer App.

"The bill is today used as a medium to communicate with the customer

from a marketing and customer care point of view. The bill reflects and confirms

tariffing and service related assurances made to the customer at the time of

sale and his lifecycle with us," says Sheila Paul, DGM, IT of BPL Mobile

Communications. Brinda Sekhar, VP, IT and Enhanced Services, with Spice Telecom,

supports this: "Billing is a very powerful means of staying in touch with

the customer. With the current thrust on CRM, billing is a vital relationship

builder." But with many companies going in for CRM suites, the customer

care functionality in a billing system is redundant to some extent, adds Anil

Gajwani, VP, Technology and Information Systems, with Orange.

Here is another testimonial from Shiv Raichand, CTO of Esctotel, "

Though the billing system costs just 3-4 percent of the total capital cost, it

is criticality too high." Still skeptical? Take this from one of the

pioneers in telecom software in India, says, Prakash Deval, billing centers

manager with MBT says, "Billing data holds a wealth of information, which

can be effectively used to position the telcos products and services, and for

optimum utilization of the telcos infrastructure."

Perhaps the most discernible change is that customers are educated now and

are demanding new and innovative services and customized methods of information

processing/communications/trading. "With the advent of Internet-based

technology services offerings, billing systems are now at the forefront of the

strategic service revolution," says Kishore Kali, VP, e-business

infrastructure of Global Tele Systems Ltd.

The same sentiment is echoed by a study carried out by TeleStrategies Inc.,

which says that sophisticated subscribers, complex connectivity and competition

among carriers for fast-moving customers are what make billing a vital marketing

tool. The study points out that within billing systems, rating and discounting

functionality must accommodate the constant demand for new rating plans, product

bundles and promotions. In other words, your billing system offers you brand

loyalty among subscribers. But the caveat here is which billing system is

optimized for your services?

It all boils down to one thing: One single bill for the different services

offered. Points out Sheila Paul, " Most of the billing issues arise due to

billing systems not supporting market requirements and data capturing errors.

The most important consideration for telecom service providers today is the

billing system’s ability to charge for new and varied services through a

single bill."

Other issues that must be addressed when managing the billing system are

scalability, reliability and accuracy, to name a few. And you also need to

understand the gaps in the present billing system to bridge them. These can be

listed as the lack of flexibility and open interface with systems, frequency of

upgrades to support market demands and technological advancements. Sheila Paul

cuts it short thus: current billing systems are not geared towards allowing

flexible charging for data oriented services and for rating of third party

services.

Needless to say, the real ordeal for any billing system lies in the ability

to bill different services (local and long distance phone, Internet, wireless,

cable TV, etc) on a single bill. This clears the ground for convergent billing

or next-generation billing.

What is Convergent Billing?

How do you bill when your calls are free? This is a question which haunts

many of the service providers as voice revenues are southward bound while data

is spiraling heavenwards. The case in question is wireless carriers. With mobile

Internet and commerce emerging as the buzzwords, made possible by technologies

like GPRS, a mobile operator can no longer depend on his legacy billing system

to charge for these new revenue streams. Wireless Internet carriers need to

collect billing data from multiple network elements and third-party platforms.

Assume that a mobile operator takes GPRS service for 15 thousand subscribers.

This would mean that the operator has to spend Rs 78 lakhs on a billing gateway

alone, while the cost of other GPRS equipment works out to Rs 7.32 core. Though

GPRS is yet to take off in India and with operators planning to go in for a flat

fee in the initial period, this may not pose major problems for the existing

billing system. But GPRS demands are to be based on usage basis and not

duration, as is the case now. "Most of the billing vendors do offer

flexibility in terms of rating. But none of these systems have the proven

ability to meet the needs of the new breed of convergent and IP-enabled

services," says Anil Gajwani. The point is buttressed by Brinda Sekhar, who

says that the scalability of the system to handle growing volumes of data and

presentation in various formats are the other major billing issues for a

cellular service provider today. But a word of caution here from Shiv Raichand:

Whether the billing system should be totally changed depends on the operator —

whether the present system is capable of being upgraded to take care of the new

requirements.

Here is another example: Hughes tele.com, the basic service provider for

Maharashtra, is contemplating to roll out a host of new services like broadband,

limited mobility and Internet. "We can’t provide different bills for

different services to our customers. Obviously the challenge here is the

flexibility of the exiting billing systems to factor in these new services. As

of now, we don’t have a system to integrate all service charges into one

single customer invoice and this multi-dimension of new services is what makes

the existing billing system vulnerable," says Navin Bhasin, head of

customer care and revenue assurance with Hughes. There can be no greater

annoyance to the subscriber than getting over billed or billed twice a month and

then have to take out his precious time to visit the service providers office to

sort things out, quips Anandya Chakraborthy, senior consultant with Birla

Technologies. The hard fact is that if a billing system cannot support

next-generation services, then the carriers and content providers either cannot

properly synchronize the retail/wholesale equation or, even worse, simply cannot

offer the product.

"Most of the available billing systems now are typically home grown

legacy systems and lack flexibility, market responsiveness and are not customer

oriented, says Kishore Kali. Another key factor that needs to fall into place

for billing systems to support these new generation services: gathering data. If

it can’t be quantified, it can’t be billed is the rule of the game. This

holds truer with the introduction of IP technology and services, which are now

sending shock waves through the telecom industry. The difficulties IP billing

create center on the inability of telecommunications networks to distinguish

between the type of content being accessed or the application being used. For

example, the billing system may not be able to determine if the content is voice

or data, or is using application service provider supported applications or

e-mail. This is exactly where most of the incumbent billing vendors were caught

off guard.

Where to Look for Billing Solutions?

First, any service provider would need to understand his requirements before

looking out for a vendor. And would do themselves a favor by asking these

questions: which one is optimized for my services? Which one can handle my

business support requirements such as data collection, provisioning, credit

management, taxing, rating and others? Which one is flexible enough to

accommodate my future pricing strategies, service bundles and business models?

Which one integrates with the remainder of my OSS?

Many companies begin with the assumption that a premade system works. This

solution is appropriate for certain environments, but service providers must

find out who the best vendors are for their billing needs. It is vital to

understand how the software works and what it will bring to the business. Always

bear in mind the fact that the bill is the only interaction the subscriber has

with the service provider each month and is a main driver of customer loyalty.

Take a quick look at the expectations from the so-called next generation

billing before crossing the bridge. "The customer should be able to access

bills in any desirable format, with convenient payment options. Also, send

statements for post-paid customers (like we do for a segment of prepaid

customers)," says Brinda Sekhar. It should be an advanced solution to

deliver high levels of flexibility and automation for multi technology and multi

service environment. Also, it should support ad hoc invoicing, multiple billing

cycles, and store and process voice/data traffic. The billing must also be an

on-line, real-time system, sums up Kishore Kali. Another key factor is

mediation, with an interface to multiple network elements; online

filtering/convergence and aggregation of records; and GUI-based mediation

parameters.

Outsourced Vs. In-house Billing Solutions

When any service provider develops a new or updated billing strategy, one of

the most important questions to ask first is whether an outsourced or an

in-house solution is a better fit for the needs of the service provider. There

is not always a straightforward answer to this question, and there are many

things to consider when making this decision. There are differing views on this

crucial question: Is billing a core function? Can a service provider outsource

billing? Many service providers stand unanimous in their view that billing is

best outsourced rather than developed in-house as it is not their

core-competency. "Billing is no doubt a core function, but can be

outsourced only to vendors who have expertise in specific billing systems

deployed by the service provider. Outsourcing in India depends on the level of

guarantee the vendor can give a service provider on maintaining confidentiality,

accuracy, timely billing, the service providers’ definition of his core

capabilities and how he intends to service the customer," remarks Sheila

Paul. According to Brinda Sekhar, outsourcing billing can be a viable option,

although the final presentation and process may still be controlled by the

service provider. This would also encourage billing houses with expertise in

this area to introduce newer technologies and efficiencies gained from multiple

operators. The service provider, says Kali, that requires new or upgraded

billing systems must choose an appropriate role associated with their technical

competence and commission the correct relationship and technology suppliers. In

short, the option can be defined as either buy direct from technology suppliers

and integrators or employ system integrators to build a system and run it for

yourself.

It’s all Possible!

Preparedness. That is the key to survival for any service provider. They must

keep an eye on the future, when billing systems will be required to process much

more than just telecom products and services. Internet, broadband and wireless

markets are still developing. What’s more, newer technologies have not

introduced any complexity, as most additions such as cable or ISP services, have

involved flat or one-time fees. But that doesn’t leave any scope for

complacency. IP technology is wreaking havoc on the telecommunications industry

and complications are bound to arise with IP billing.

Changes in technology undoubtedly have introduced some complexity. But, on

the same breath, have solved other problems. Legacy systems are not necessarily

bad boys, as new protocols bridge the gap between operating systems, databases

and hardware. Thus, billing vendors can ease out of the debate about technology

and return to designing systems to alleviate billing problems.

Vendors

MT Jeevan