Billing for Wireless Data: The Amdocs Strategy

Editor’s Note: Amdocs’ has recently expanded their wireless customer base. This is a direct result of their acquisition of ITDS and their list of prominent European customers where wireless data services are ahead of the rest. Therefore it is logical to assume that Amdocs recognizes WAP as a tremendous market opportunity. Written by Dorit Barak, vice president of research and development, this contribution is in response to a series of questions that Billing World put together and felt the readership would find of interest.

In a nutshell, we wanted to find out how Amdocs plans to address billing for wireless data, the influx of WAP services, and other mobile data services such as GPRS, as well as any enhancements or product development plans Amdocs has to support such services.

Assuming the WAP platform can measure for usage-based services, billing vendors must address many interface and integration issues to take advantage of this billing method. We asked Amdocs how they create usable billing records for these types of services and what challenges or factors exist that could prevent them from effectively billing for wireless data.

Like any revolution, only historians can make logical order out of the chaos, but already we have identified three initial, partially overlapping phases. Phase One is happening now, based on Short Message Service (SMS) technology. SMS is mainly being used as a platform for email and value added services, such as news, weather and stock reports. Our Australian customer, Mobilkom, currently uses advanced applications of SMS for e-commerce services. Phase Two is WAP technology, which will enable delivery of IP services on the handset. WAP is currently in the trial stage, and we are working with a number of customers in examining and running trials for the billing infrastructure. In parallel with handset availability, WAP services will become available to the mass market during 2000. Phase Three, GPRS technology, is concurrent with the introduction of WAP services. GPRS facilitates GSM-based wireless broadband access to the Internet via the PC. GPRS will also enhance WAP service levels. Mannesmann Mobilfunk, also an Amdocs customer, expects to go live with GPRS during 2000.

In reviewing the complexity of billing for wireless data, the first challenge is event collection and mediation. Carriers are looking for IP billing capabilities that can capture information from multiple servers, routers, gateways and content providers. However, technology for capturing wireless IP data transmission is still under development. The absence of standards in this area creates additional (although avoidable) challenges for carriers and CC&B vendors alike. For GPRS, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) has defined a standard single entry point, known as a Charging Gateway, for capturing billable information on wireless data platforms. The WAP Forum, of which we are an active member, has also established a Billing Group. However, the industry still has a long way to go to establish a standard wireless IP data record format.

In the context of wireline IP, the IPDR (Internet Protocol Data Record) organization has made considerable progress with the recent announcement of a draft standard. As a charter member of this group, we recognize the importance of its work in enabling effective billing from multiple providers, allowing IP events to be measured via standardized formats. A similar initiative is urgently needed in the wireless arena. Transmission formats, protocols and gateway records must be standardized in order to maximize provisioning, settlement and, ultimately, billing capabilities.

In the GPRS arena, we are developing extensive GPRS mediation capabilities for our billing platform. These capabilities are currently being implemented, for example, as part of our project at Mannesmann Mobilfunk. We have expanded our Acquisition and Formatting product with some Charging Gateway functionality to facilitate direct collection of data records from the network elements. These records contain the necessary data to enable rating by aggregate volume, IP provider and type of transmission.

The market is also lacking strong mediation products for the WAP environment. The role of the mediation component is to ensure that all IP detail records are captured as billable events. On the wireline side, companies like Narus and XACCT Technologies have developed capabilities to facilitate IP usage measurement. While not yet widely implemented, these products allow for the development of usage-based rating and billing. However, no equivalent products exist for wireless, especially for collecting content-sensitive parameters.

In the Amdocs WAP Development Lab, the R&D team is using a WAP Gateway and dedicated WAP server to collect WAP usage for processing downstream by our customer care and billing modules. To define event usage parameters, our Acquisition and Formatting module analyzes the incoming record and maps the rating parameters using specific Internet URLs, categories of online services and content parameters as defined by the service provider's business model. With this technology, our WAP lab has demonstrated that a wireless subscriber can use a WAP service and then access the service’s rating and billing information through the wireless handset display in real time.

Rating wireless data records presents additional levels of complexity. At this early stage in the wireless data market, carriers are typically choosing to rate based on airtime or volume of data. Amdocs' mainstay customer care and billing system readily handles this method of billing for wireless data. However, it is clear that additional types of rating capabilities will soon be in demand in the wireless data arena.

Amdocs has implemented an airtime billing solution for a large European wireless carrier that offers Web-browsing services to its GSM subscribers. The trend is to implement more sophisticated pricing schemes; for example, we are working with this European customer to support rating by volume. The final phase of this project will support another level of complexity with the introduction of content-sensitive rating. Another of our European wireless customers offering a value-added service whereby subscribers can send an SMS requesting certain types of information, which then becomes available on the subscriber’s handset. The charges for the service are included in the subscriber’s monthly bill.

Currently, many of our customers are evaluating the various rating scenarios for wireless data services. A key parameter will be activity type, with information retrieval, email, file transfer, and database access billed at different rates. Additional parameters are data transmission volumes, quality of service, time of day (peak/off-peak), location and SLAs adherence. Some wireless companies are also looking to charge based on the value of the service. For example, subscribers would be charged a different rate for downloading stock quotes during stock exchange trading hours than for checking airline schedules or the weather. A still different rate would apply to someone searching through an extensive database of real estate records. Various fee structures are being considered, such as flat rate, subscription, or per-transaction bases. The perennial “who pays” question is still very much an issue, with some carriers considering offering certain services - such as product information or advertising - free to the user, with payment by the content provider. Such arrangements would need to be supported by the billing and settlement components of the CC&B solution. Similarly, some wireless carriers we are speaking with plan to charge e-commerce merchants a commission on transactions completed over their networks.

We are seeing signs that substantiate the prediction that wireless companies could become the credit companies of the Internet. Several of our customers are using new methods of e-commerce to bill for transactions far beyond calling and data transmission. At Mobilkom, for example, subscribers can order railway tickets with the cellular handset, and they are billed for the purchase via our billing system as part of their monthly bill. For one European customer, Amdocs is developing e-commerce clearinghouse capabilities, including integration of customer authentication and identification as part of the payment completion process. Additional e-commerce capabilities under development for the payment and security models, include support for micro-payments, pre-payment, credit management and advanced security mechanisms.

Settlement is a key hurdle for any carrier billing for wireless data services. In the world of voice, carriers bill their customers and intercarrier settlement systems resolve interoperator invoicing issues. In the world of WAP, parties other than telecommunications carriers are participating in the billing process. Content providers, credit agencies, service brokers, merchants and other parties handle e-commerce and the broad range of wireless data transactions available. Many of the challenges in effectively billing for WAP stem directly from these settlement issues. Do carriers want to take the lead role in billing for commercial content providers and other creditors? Will the multi-dimensional forms of billing for content successfully tap the potential usage for these technologies? Carriers have expressed the need for a settlement system that can handle transactions with this broad array of billing concerns. We are currently looking to expand the functionality of our existing settlement process to provide back-office support for e-commerce, VAS and other Internet applications. Interestingly, some of our customers have indicated that value-added services appearing on wireless bills will not be treated in the same manner as telecommunications services when it comes to collection; they would like to see the content provider or retailer take on this responsibility.

We are adapting www.self.service, our standard Web-based application activated via Internet connectivity, to support WAP technology and the handset environment. One of our U.S. customers allows its end-users to access information in its billing database. Using their handsets, they can review their latest billing information, including call details, pending charges, past bills, service and plan information, bill payment records and account information. We are developing bill payment capabilities for this carrier's subscribers to access through WAP and IP.

Relative to wireless, ordering in the IP context can be much more complex. Such an ordering system must be able to manage product definition and provisioning in this environment. This involves additional layers of complexity, for example, definition and provisioning of email and fax services, unified messaging, combined Internet and voice service pricing packages, the whole gamut of content and hosting services offered by ISPs, and integration with GPRS switches and WAP servers. In addition, our customers have expressed interest in capabilities enabling wireless subscribers to order wireless data services and price plans through wireless handset displays and the Internet. We are currently developing provisioning for Internet service for several of our GSM customers.

Another challenge in billing for WAP services involves roaming. Roaming is currently available for the WAP bearer rather than for the specific WAP services, which are limited to the service provider's local billing constraints. An effective billing system must be able to handle both roaming capabilities and transaction-based billing. The goal is to provide a system that can support full roaming with the capabilities to bill for local transactions wherever the subscriber roams. All service providers stand to benefit from these capabilities, yet a standardization of transmission and billing protocols must be established in order to make it possible.

Convergence continues to be a key challenge for wireless carriers. We are finding that most of our customers are opting for a convergent solution: one integrated platform supporting all voice and data services. Their reasoning involves:

unified customer service for voice and data
customer-centric ordering, allowing both wireless and IP services to be ordered via the same platform (whether that be a Web-based or call center application)
rating that combines all service offerings (such as combined voice and Internet airtime), a capability that takes on greater prominence as bills are presented in real-time over wireless devices
strong back office support required for large-scale operations in billing, accounts receivable, auditing and customer service
simplified systems implementation and management

With the expansion of wireless data services, we also anticipate a boost for business intelligence software. For example, with the growth of wireless e-commerce, the opportunities for fraud are likely to expand. Software that can limit fraud in this environment will be valuable. Similarly, the evolution of wireless technologies and services creates new usage situations and service availability that redefines customer behavior. The savvy service provider wants to stay abreast of these changes to keep customers happy and retain business. Some of our customers are looking at our Customer Behavior Analysis product, which uses visualization technology to help carriers analyze usage trends such as the impact of new Internet service introductions. Furthermore, the addition of e-commerce information will enrich data warehouses, improving the ability of churn management software to identify churn candidates and retention strategies. A byproduct of the wireless data revolution will be an improved understanding of subscriber behavior and enhanced customer relationship management.