CANTO 2005 Towards Next-Generation Convergent Billing Systems

1. CANTO 2005Towards Next-Generation Convergent Billing Systems CTO – Bohdan Zabawskyj June 2005

2. Agenda • Objectives • Review the requirements of next-generation convergent billing solutions • Agenda • Redknee • Subscriber & Carrier Requirements • Billing • Traditional Approaches • Real-Time Value-Based Rating • Open Architectures • The Value Chain • Summary

3. Products with Results Redknee is a provider of services infrastructure products to wireless network operators Our products enable customers to enrich and extend their network service capabilities and service offerings for their subscribers Our product categories include Real Time Payment & Rating, Messaging, Location and Call/Data control Redknee’s clients benefit by being able to offer more competitive services and interactive content that their subscribers value Preferred vendor by leading customers Proven products with over 200 deployments Significant network and product experience Awards for innovation and management

4. Essential Service Attributes • Services must embody the interrelated user values of: • Conspicuous value • Value and operation of service is immediately appreciated • Profound simplicity • Presentment of only essential controls and information • Self-evidence • Controls are intuitive, context sensitive, and adaptive • Carriers must provide capabilities to improve services per the key user values: Personal • Tailored to the individual & adaptive Localized • Information relevant to the subscriber’s current location Timely • Relevant to the subscriber’s current activities and not delayed so that it becomes a nuisance or irritant Actionable • So that the subscriber can actively react to and control a service in an intuitive manner

5. Carrier Requirements • Leverage existing infrastructure • Non-functional requirements • Support of open industry standards • Differentiate operator offering from competing service providers • Offer flexible and configurable rate plans • Customize rate plans for subscriber groups • Enable application/content partners to effectively and rapidly launch new mobile services • Provide device/platform transparency to subscribers and service providers • Provide a scalable, robust, and evolvable system • Deliver personalized experience to mobile subscribers, while ensuring subscriber privacy

6. Traditional Billing Strategies

7. Without Converged Billing • Problem 1 • Customer receives multiple bills per service despite being the same service provider • Problem 2 • Carrier cannot provide cross-service rating and billing schemas • Problem 3 • Multiple billing and rating systems greatly increases infrastructure, ownership and support costs. • Problem 4 • Multiple CRM applications = higher training cost and poor customer satisfaction Customers

8. Three Key Issues For Next-Generation Rating Solutions • It Is Not About Bandwidth and ‘bps’, It Is About Creating Value from the Perspective of a Seamless Subscriber Experience: • Cohesive subscriber management • Service access across multiple access technologies • Open architectures for subscriber context and preference information • Moving from MoU (Minutes of Use) to Billable Events • Billing & provisioning are not adequate • Usage based rating is inappropriate and confusing • Value Creation • Latent demand for value based services • Services are increasingly focused chronologically and spatially • Traditional service deployment tactics are becoming less relevant • Operator development & testing for 6 months • Event that is deployed for 2 weeks • Billing cycle of 3 months

9. Need for Real-Time Rating • A convergent billing environment is associated with the rating of any transactional event, irrespective of the delivery technology involved, in real-time. • Allows transaction-oriented charges to be accrued and applied against a given subscriber over any chronological period – allows for: • Prepaid services • Postpaid services • Per-use • Bucket billing • Enable the application of complex rating structures traditionally associated with a postpaid environment to a prepaid environment

10. Convergence Requirements • A convergent environment must incorporates the following: • Concurrent support of: Integration with existing/anticipated IN/ISC (IP multi-media Service Control) trigger based functionality. Processing of CDRs. Provision of intermediation capabilities where required • Versatile and high performance rating engine • Supports both transactional real-time and high-performance batch processing on a single platform. • Events can be associated with multiple rules and charges and can also be associated with loyalty programs concurrently. • Powerful, user-friendly Customer Relationship Management tools. • Intuitive GUIs allowing users (or customer care representatives) to view historical usage or alter preferences/subscription information. • Real-time engine permits charges or payments to be immediately reflected (visible) in the account.

11. With Converged Billing • Single Invoice for all services. • Integrated rating/billing schemas – e.g. bundle discounts, loyalty plans and promotions. • Hybrid rating scenarios – prepaid wireless data, contract wireline and wireless voice, usage based DSL rating. • Charges reflect value of the service including regional/chronological/QoS factors. • Single, scalable solution for all services – Total Cost of Ownership decreases. Customers

12. Implications of Open Architectures Relevant market driver is the pervasive adoption of Open Systems Architectures… …which creates greater innovation and value across the entire industry value chain: Example: “Plug and Play” enabled the PC software ecosystem Example: TCP/IP & HTML enabled the networking & ‘e-commerce’ ecosystem

13. Value of an “Open” Approach Open Systems offer proven business benefits: Increased ROI with Reduced Risk Flexibility & Interoperability Simpler and Quicker Integration  Larger ecosystem and resource pools Ability to choose “best of breed” vendors An implication of opening networks is the shift from vertical products to horizontally integrated solutions

14. Open Architectures in Wireless Carriers Device convergence driven by function density (phone, PDA) Service convergence driven by mobility and personalization OSS/BSS monetization evolving to real-time (Redknee) Network convergence driven by low cost bits (IP, VoIP)

15. M-Commerce Value Chain • Carriers have a central role in the m-commerce value chain: • As a trusted intermediary • Support of micro-transactions • The provision of value added services and information • Subscriber context and preferences

16. Enable the 3G Vision Today • Open Service & Application Creation Environment • Open architectures provide an effective and efficient service creation environment where existing network capabilities can be accessed and leveraged using object oriented API’s • Real Time Transacted Services • Facilitates the correlation of value to a given service by supporting application of transactional or periodic charging of any event to any class of subscriber (pre-paid, post-paid, or combined) Time To Market Accelerates velocity of service creation environment to provide a suite of activations which are contextually and chronologically relevant to an individual subscriber

17. Redknee Sales sales@redknee.com http://www.redknee.com Fax: + 1 905 625 2773 • NA & CALA (North America, Caribbean & Latin America) • 2560 Matheson Blvd East, Suite 500 • Mississauga, ON L4W 4Y9 Canada NA Tel: + 1 905 625 2374 CALA Tel: +1 954 345 8361 • EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) • Riesstrasse 17 • 80992 Munich Germany • EMEA Tel: +49 89 820 8190 EMEA Fax: +49 89 820 819 11 • APAC (Asia Pacific) • 80, Raffles Place, UOB Plaza 1, 35th FloorSingapore 048624 • APAC Tel: +65 6248 4735