Billing Q & A with Jim O’Neill

Q–We are a wireless service provider, and our company would like to restrict international calling on a selective basis for some of our business customers. I have two questions:

• How can I find international country and

city codes?

• How can I restrict international calling to certain customers?



A—Your first question has touched on a somewhat sensitive issue for wireless companies, which want to provide all possible flexibility for customers but at the same time protect themselves from fraud losses. Allowing international calling is going to be increasingly important as more and more people use wireless phones exclusively.

The answer to the first question is relatively easy. A number of sources are available, but the trick is to pick one that stays current not only with country codes, but with international city codes as well. One source is the SNET International Code Database, which is available via the Web or by direct link for subscriber clients. According to SNET, its database contains more than 100,000 entries for 200-plus countries.

One of the neat features of the database is that you can enter a country code and get a translation to the country name, or enter a country and city name and get the actual codes for each. What makes that so valuable is that if you know the destination country, you can route a call directly from your network to specific carriers that maintain POPs in the target country—and thereby possibly avoid multiple access charges. This is especially important for wireless carriers that want to avoid undercharging customers for international calls.

You can do a “road test” of the SNET product online at www.snetdg-appsonline.com/ICDB.php. Just enter “demo” in the dialog box that asks for your username.

Your second question, about selectively restricting international calling for some customers, is a little more difficult, because you have to keep track of those subscribers both in the customer database to manage them and in the network to permit or restrict international calling. You did not mention what type of billing system or network you have, so my answer is only a general approach that defines the capabilities you will need.

First, to identify selected customers, you need a customer type indicator in your subscriber database—such indicators are commonly found in most billing systems. If you want to permit all business customers to make international calls, that is easy. If you want only selected business customers to have that privilege, depending on the billing system architecture, you may have to define a separate customer code.

Alternatively, it may also be possible to define a feature code at the service (phone number) level. You might also want to restrict international calling to certain rate plans, which is another way to deal with the selection process.

Regardless of the approach you use, the network has to be informed on a line-by-line basis when selected customers are permitted various calling options.

A further permutation occurs if you want to allow specific customers to call specific countries. This could be hopelessly complicated, so be sure your network can support that approach before you even start defining requirements for billing and the mediation system that interfaces with your network.

Q—Is there any way to provide international directory assistance to our customers at a reasonable cost?



A—Actually, it has become very easy, as more and more telecommunications companies expand their services in order to retain customers. Large companies like SBC Communications and BellSouth offer international directory assistance to their long distance customers via phone.

But for really low-cost assistance (read “free”), advise your customers to visit Verizon’s directory services at www.superpages.com. You don’t have to be a Verizon customer or identify yourself. Click on the link to “Search Directories Outside the U.S.” From there you can do a continent search, and within each country one or more directory options will be presented.

To test it, I selected Europe from the map and the United Kingdom from a list of countries. Where it asked for a person or business name and a town or village, I entered the name of a friend who lives in an obscure village in Scotland. It found his home address and phone number in about two heartbeats.