FCC: Better Get Ready for CPP

The Convergys billing system lets wireless customers order CPP on an individual basis for a monthly fee from their carriers, says Brian O’Conner, director of information systems at Convergys.

To make CPP work, a wireless carrier, in conjunction with the local exchange carrier, dedicates a unique NPA-NXX to drive CPP functionality. This unique NPA-NXX enables the local exchange and wireless carriers to define processes within their switches and support systems. The line selected from this NPA NXX inventory then associates the line as CPP with a recurring charge. The billing system technicians place edits in the rating process so the wireless customer isn’t billed for incoming airtime.

“We've developed table edits to ensure that only CPP customers receive CPP service packages for those lines,” O’Conner says.

“From a systems standpoint, we had to make enhancements to our message processing system based on the CPP NPA-NXX,” he says. “So when these calls are actually processed by our front-end systems, it is recognized as a CPP message and we don’t charge airtime or process that message for that customer.” The call information is sent to the wireless carrier on a monthly reporting basis, O’Conner says. “The dedicated CPP NPA-NXX is a triggering mechanism throughout the system for the LECs; they are the ones who charge for the call. So, if the [landline] caller dials the NPA-NXX, that will be passed through to the local landline switch, and the LEC will pick it up as a CPP call. We don’t rate or process that wireless message on our system. We extract it and place it on the CPP reconciliation report.” The biggest challenge for building CPP capability, he says, is testing and coordinating with the LEC and wireless carrier for reconciliation, billing and collection.

Wireless carriers also set up an automated message system on the switch that notifies customers. “The switch knows when the CPP call occurs,” O’Conner says. “It automatically trips a voice recording that prompts the caller to dial 1 in order to complete the call and to verify that they are willing to be billed for the call.” Such systems, however, don’t inform callers at what rate they will be billed.