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Frens Jan Rumph
Profile: I am a researcher, technical consultant and software engineer based in Holland. I have specialized in Charging, Accounting and Billing architectures. From both a technical point of view (IETF, 3GPP, etc) and a business point of view (TM Forum, GBA).
Main interests: Telecom, Charging, Accounting, Billing, Service Orientation, Software Architectures, Software Engineering
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I do not make any representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
Furthermore, this is a personal weblog, the opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
Lifetree Convergence missing the point
I just read an article on billingworld.com about how Lifetree Convergence uses McObject’s eXtremeDB for real-time rating and credit control. On one hand interesting, for me as an engineer at least, on the other hand completely missing the point!
My two cents…
Cent 1: Added value
While speed is ofcourse a (not unimportant) requirement for a real-time rating and credit control application, it’s not going to win you the war. Adding customer value just might, and a credit control request rated within 2 milliseconds or within 20 milliseconds just might not be perceived as value by the customer.
Cent 2: Service Orientation
When checking out their website I noticed the following remark: ‘@Billity’s powerful functionality comes in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This provides you a framework to integrate existing, legacy applications on to a single platform.’ This sounds good of course, SOA is a great buzz word (yes, it still is). However I’ve not seen ANYthing that leads me to thing that it has any caracteristics of being service oriented. Just to be complete, the service oriented design principles as described by Erl:
- Service Loose Coupling
- Service Abstraction
- Service Reusability
- Service Autonomy
- Service Statelessness
- Service Discoverability
- Service Composability
- Standardized Service Contract
I think that the combination of SOA and charging/billing presents some great opportunities, in terms of business agility, time-to-market and total cost of ownership. But there are also some hurdles to be taken. One of those is performance. Some billing implementations have to process millions of CDR’s per hour, but the most commonly used SOA enabling techologies (SOAP/XML webservices) are probably not going to ‘cut it’. Especially if you consider that some charging/billing processes would involve a lot of service invocations.
I wonder if any vender will ever pick up on this by itself, the benifit for them might just not be big enough…
Frens Jan Rumph
In the Zone at MetraTech
Billingworld.com has interviewed Doug Zone, CTO of MetraTech at the Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo. ‘It’s about enabling innovative business models’.
Always to hear something from the guys at MetraTech. Lets give traditional billing systems a run for their money. I have had the chance to work with their product MetraNet for some time, prototyping a multi-partner Electronic Multimedia Mall. The concept unfortunatly has never seen the light, but it would have been an interesting enabling platform for the telecom/media industry. Oh well, at least the guys at MetraTech are brying some dynamicity into the billing world!
Link: Interview at billingworld.com
Frens Jan Rumph
HP and Amdocs claim IMS interoperability with legacy billing
Resulting from their joint efforts at the 4th IMS Forum’s plugfest, HP and Amdocs claim that they prove IMS interoperability with a Legacy Billing System.
The efforts by HP and Amdocs are indeed great steps that need to be taken in order for the IMS architecture to be successfully developed and brought to the industry. HP is even re-using this strategy toward other vendors as well. One of those vendors is Highdeal. They claim a ‘dramatic brakethrough’ in online charging. I do applaud these activities, as they strengthen the commercial viability of the IMS.
I do have some issues however with the claims. First of all, how legacy are the systems from Amdocs or Highdeal? It is claimed that Amdocs for instance communicates with HP through (at least some flavour) of diameter. Both products are top of the notch billing systems, and can hardly be called legacy!
Secondly, and even more important for me, is the question: what does this do to standardisation? I have raised the question earlier already in a previous post. This might make all the efforts put in the development of Online Charging System specifications useless. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure, but one of the reasons for standardisation is to decrease vendor lock-in possibilities, so I’d say that this work should be continued. However if the industry is not adopting the standards… It would be nice to see HP, Amdocs, Highdeal and others to give back to 3GPP in the form of their protocols for communication towards rating and account balance management systems.
Source: HP and Amdocs claim (pdf)
Source: HP and Highdeal announcement
Frens Jan Rumph
CDF / CGF: worth your money?
Openet announced on billingworld.com the release of their Charging Gateway based on their Future Works product. It is claimed to be 3GPP standards compliant. To me as a technician this sounds like a 3GPP CGF or a CDF+CGF implementation. My question is: is this worth your money?
Even though their product is probably a great product, but I’m wondering if mediation (because that’s just what it is) is going to exist in the future. Personally I see more in things like the Policy and Charging Control architecture in combination with an Online Charging System. It’s all about the Customer Experience (in which charging and billing play a big role) and Revenue Assurence. To me, old fashioned mediation (based on the CDF/CGF architecture for instance) does not fit in that vision.
Expect the next blog to be on Charging and Billing strategies for the IMS: conservative or progressive 
BTW: I’ve heard vendors talk about ‘Active Mediation’ when they talk about their implementation of the Online Charging Function, but I wouldn’t see that as being mediation. That’s controlling a users session from a charging/billing/crm point of view. That’s a lot more then ‘just’ mediation.
Frens Jan Rumph
Orga Systems Convergence Program announced
Orga Systems, a vendor of convergent real-time billing products, has announced the launch of the Orga Systems Convergence Program, described by company officials as a “one-stop shop” for telecom billing and CRM processes.
It comprises a product portfolio by Orga Systems and selected partners, offering what the Organians call “an end-to-end product,” with “professional services for consulting, product design and software integration” included in the package.
“With our one-stop-shop product we offer telecommunication providers the possibility of covering all areas of the billing chain with us as a central partner,” said Rainer Neumann, CEO, Orga Systems GmbH.
“Pre-integrated for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is Selligent’s product,” Orga officials say, adding that “all requirements of bill handling are covered by Group 1 Software. Business Objects takes care of the reporting requirements. WeDo technologies complements the concept in regards to TAP roaming, and Basset Labs completes the product package with interconnect billing. Additional partners will follow soon.”
A couple weeks ago Orga Systems chose CRM specialist Selligent as a preferred partner for its product portfolio. By expanding its flagship billing system OPSC Gold with a fully-fledged CRM product, Orga Systems hopes to approach telecom operators with an integrated offer covering marketing, sales, billing and customer service needs.
Selligent X@ CRM suite will be integrated into OPSC Gold to cover billing and CRM. Basically, it looks like this partnership agreement is a way for Orga Systems to become a one-stop shop vendor for telecom operators.OPSC Gold allows convergent prepaid and postpaid charging. With this product, operators can launch pricing plans with flexible payment options while maintaining real-time credit control.In the CRM business for over 15 years, Selligent has developed IT and communication products. Selligent emphasizes “rapid implementation” and “high level of user adoption” when pitching its CRM system. “Telecom operators need to maintain first-class relationships with their customers, provide optimal service quality, quickly respond to all customer enquiries and launch marketing campaigns in a very short time in order to achieve a competitive advantage and to guarantee high customer satisfaction,” says André Lejeune, CEO of Selligent.
Frens