Importance of Analyzing Telecom Billing Vendors on the Basis of Billing Solutions

Billing has always remained the center of attention of telecom operators across the globe. It plays a vital role in ascertaining a company’s revenue through its subscribers. When billing tasks are performed accurately and customers receive correct bills with no mismatch in information, it helps in creating a bond of trust between customers and a telecom operator. This is why; telecom operators seek help from telecom billing vendors, who can enhance their OSS and BSS services.

Why Use a Single Billing Solution?

When a company uses many financial software solutions to manage its day-to-day OSS and BSS services, it leads to utter chaos. It becomes hard to keep a track of customers’ usage of telecom services like voice calls, SMS and internet data. On the other hand, when a company employs state-of-the-art billing solutions, the task becomes a lot easier for both subscriber and telecom vendor. There is complete transparency in the billing process, which helps in building customer trust.

Charging Methods Used by Telecom Billing Vendors

For billing purposes, telecom billing vendors utilize two modes of charging as mentioned below:

1.      Usage-based charging – Usage-based charging is done on the basis of customers’ service utilization. E.g. when a customer makes a call, he is charged for the duration of the call.

2.      Rent-based charging – Rent-based charging is done on the basis of pre-decided rent that a customer has to pay regardless of his use of the telecom service. E.g. if a customer signs up for a 10$ rental plan, he has to pay 10$ regardless of whether he has made a call or not.

Apart from these two types of charges, a telecom vendor can also charge you for installation, maintenance or service termination.

How to Choose a Telecom Billing Solution?

Keeping in mind the emerging requirements of telecom operators, a billing solution should be bought after complete evaluation. It is also important for a telecom vendor to understand the various billing types used in the telecom industry, so he can make a better decision while selecting a billing solution:

1.      Postpaid billing – This type of billing is widely used by subscribers all around the world. In postpaid billing, charges are calculated at the end of a billing cycle and sent to the customer in the form of a monthly invoice.

2.      Prepaid billing – Prepaid billing is the most widely utilized billing type, in which; customer pays the amount in advance. Charging for prepaid billing is done in real time to prevent customer from exceeding his data or call limit.

3.      Charges for roaming – Roaming charges are applied when a customer moves outside his network area and makes a call or uses data. In this case, one network provider pays marginal charges to another service provider. Moreover, the customer also incurs additional charges, which need to be paid at the end of billing cycle.

4.      Interconnect billing – When a network operator allows another network operator to use his network, he collects charges via interconnect billing.

5.      Convergent billing – Convergent billing combines all service charges in a single customer invoice. E.g. when a customer uses data, calls, IPTV and other related services, he gets a single bill instead of many bills. Convergent billing is becoming very popular these days and it becomes essential for a telecom service provider to have billing software that allows for convergent billing.

Summary

Billing has become a very important part of operations taking place in the telecom industry. For telcos to be successful nowadays, it becomes essential to partner with telecom billing vendors that can supply quality billing solutions. However, before making a choice between different billing software solutions available in the market, a telecom operator should analyze different billing requirements.