So, that’s it then. Summer 2006 is almost over and now work and winter beckon. And a strange summer it has been here in the UK. In July temperatures were more like what we would normally expect to experience when holidaying in Luxor, Egypt whilst August has been cool, damp and blustery, just the sort of thing you’d get if you’d taken a trip to the Faeroe Isles. No wonder we Brits are so obsessed with the subject!

However, a new season, one of mists and mellow fruitfulness, (if you believe the words of John Keats) is upon us and with it comes this latest edition of Evolve. Our lead story is about IMS, otherwise known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem, widely regarded as the “next big thing” in communications

IMS is an evolutionary technological step that effectively straddles the circuit-switched and packet-switched worlds and provides consumers, the ones who pay all our salaries, with compelling new communications services.  However, this transformation will take time and we will have to live through a period when mediation and billing systems will be hybrid beasts; a melange of IMS and the remnants of the traditional fixed and mobile networks we are used to today.

Also in this edition of Evolve Cerillion gets its teeth into Bulldog by providing the Cable & Wireless subsidiary with a new CRM and Billing solution. We have implemented our Revenue Manager, CRM Plus, Mediator and Information manager modules to support Bulldog’s VoIP and metered broadband services and carried out the migration of the customer base to the new system.

And as for elsewhere, well, as we know, Africa is one of the fastest-growing telecoms markets on earth and over the summer Cerillion also signed a new contract with Reltelwireless for the implementation of a mediation platform for the company’s CDMA network in Nigeria, a country where the mobile market is the most vibrant on the continent.

So, while some regard the summer period as a slackish time in the industry, Cerillion has been powering ahead and looks forward to more of the same as fall falls and winter waits in the wings. Summer’s lease really does have all too short a date but cheer-up – it’ll soon be 2007!

Excuse me, but do you do IMS Billing?

Each and every week another batch of conference brochures plops fatly onto my desk, all of them pushing the latest and greatest trends in the telecoms industry and enticing me to participate in yet another “only event of its kind”. Then the magazines arrive, each one covering all the latest hot topics and providing special supplements and pullout guides to the next big thing. And what is this “next big thing”, highlighted in the press and driving a whole new generation of industry events? It is, of course IMS, also known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem.

The hype is doing its job – generating interest in IMS. But along with the hype comes considerable confusion over what IMS really is, and what it means for the Business Support Systems (BSS) and Operational Support Systems (OSS) that are in place today. In fact perplexity has now reached such a pass that I have actually been approached at conferences by slightly bewildered billing managers and asked, “Excuse me, but you do IMS billing?”!

IMS the Liberator?

IMS is being touted as the liberator, a knight in shining armour for a sector still very much in recovery mode after the depredations of the recent years of the telecoms recession. As usual though, the reality behind is slightly more complex than the hype. The fact is that while IMS can indeed solve many of the core challenges currently confronting us, it is no more than the next step in a continuing evolution – one that demands complementary changes to supporting systems and processes as well as wider business cultures.

Bridging the packet- and circuit-switched worlds and providing customers with access to ever-richer sets of services, IMS actually provides a platform for the real world development of new business models and value chains that have been promised for so long.

Perhaps the best way to view IMS architecture is to see it as a loose framework of articulated functions and APIs that can be linked together to enable services. In this context, IMS could be considered as able to provide the basic skeletal building blocks - which can then be fleshed over with applications created by each individual service provider according to specific needs.

The focus here is on setting-up, managing and then taking-down communications sessions, each composed of multiple transactions across manifold interacting systems. Each individual transaction might consist of something as simple as a check on a user’s Instant Messaging (IM) status or a request for a customer’s location information but, when added together, these can be assembled into a commercial service, such as, for example, one that locates available friends in a city centre on a night out.

The step change here is the move from a legacy, stovepiped architecture, where new systems are required to support new services, to a horizontal or layered architecture, where the service building blocks can be re-used by multiple separate applications. If openness and agility in the creation and delivery of services, applications and content to ever broader ranges of devices are the defining characteristics of the new telecommunications environment, then these needs must be mirrored by similar values and functionalities in the supporting billing and revenue management systems.

IMS standards

IMS was first incorporated into the 3GPP standards in release 5 (way back in 2002), and has been further enhanced in release 6 and release 7 with WLAN and fixed network interworking with the support from TISPAN (the fixed networks and internet standardisation group within ETSI). In the billing and charging arena, this has included standardisation on the use of Diameter as the main protocol for collecting charging data. This covers both offline charging, for batch-based processing, and online charging for real-time processing and prepaid business models.

The transition to IMS will not happen overnight, and thus for some time to come it will be necessary for mediation and billing systems to support a hybrid environment that mixes IMS as the basis for some services, with the traditional fixed and mobile network infrastructures that exist today. As the volume of services deployed under IMS increases, the loading on the charging systems will rise dramatically, as many more data sources will need to be mediated, correlated and filtered, to present only the chargeable data required for each service to the online and offline charging systems.

Though the volume of transactions and the new charging standards will pose some challenges for business support systems, many of the issues will originate within the business model and the need to support a more sophisticated ordering process for the new products and services that IMS enables.

Consumers will be encouraged to sample an ever-increasing mix of services and applications, through ever-improving end-user devices. The transactions necessary to support all these new orders, sometimes changing on a minute-by-minute basis as the user navigates through different content and application downloads or their access network on an ad hoc basis, will therefore also increase by several orders of magnitude.

Other issues will arise because service orders no longer involve the simple network connectivity of just dial-tone or DSL access. Supporting systems now have to know that both the network and the customer device itself are capable of delivering the required service or application with sufficient QoS. If a particular request for a service cannot be fulfilled at the given time or place, then in turn, the customer must instantly be informed of the reasons for the failure – and, if possible, automatically offered an upgrade to a new service plan or device through a self-provisioning route. The alternative is either the creation of an increasingly unhappy customer base or the wasting of scarce resources on over-manned help desks.

IMS Evolution

For some operators, the targeting the convergence of fixed and mobile services will be a welcome “sweet spot” on the business plan supported by IMS. For others, it may be the rapid creation of community-oriented, multimedia services, applications and content that reaches across the other media of TV and radio. Whatever the service provider’s business development plan, today’s consumer increasingly expects to have a ‘pick and mix’ portfolio of services available – all at ever keener and more competitive prices.

If IMS does represent a major advance on what went before, and it seems to, it is important to remember that it is not an instant ‘one-size fits all’ solution. Each particular service provider has a unique set of assets, histories, ambitions and financial and regulatory frameworks within which it must operate – and one of the strengths of IMS is that it can be structured to deliver specific tactical or strategic advantage.

There is no doubt that IMS will be a great leap forward both in the delivery of services and applications and the convergence of networks and devices. The key question is “when”?

Dominic Smith
Dominic.Smith@cerillion.com

Find out more: Request your copy of Cerillion’s IMS Billing white paper now!

Cerillion Solution Focus: Broadband and Multi-Play

Are your business support systems unable to support the complexities of broadband and multi-play services? Do your Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) have to switch between several different applications during each customer session, wasting valuable time and introducing revenue assurance headaches? Cerillion CRM & Billing can provide the ideal solution, integrating smoothly with your business processes and providing end-to-end service delivery and billing integration.

Cerillion provides a complete business support solution for broadband and multi-play communications providers supporting all major business functions and processes. The solution is built upon a user configurable workflow management engine, which is embedded into all the key Cerillion modules. This manages the sequencing of events & required actions in order to fulfil key business processes such as order management, provisioning and collections. Workflow management ensures that work is carried out efficiently, quickly and precisely, and is vital for triple-play and quadruple-play where multiple steps might be needed to provision services like IPTV or Voice over IP (VoIP).

The pre-integrated Web Self-Care module means that order management is not limited to CSRs in the call centre.  Customers can access their own accounts via a secure web portal, enabling immediate ordering of new services and helping to drive down the cost of service delivery.

Cerillion’s sophisticated product bundling enables development of creative packages to fulfil all your marketing strategies. Event-based rating and rules-based discounting means that any mix of services can be combined to create attractive consumer and corporate bundles, including cross-service incentives and targeted campaigns. Value chain management means that new content partners and sponsors can be engaged easily – allowing rapid introduction of new services whilst maintaining full financial control.

Cerillion is proven from more than 35 customer installations worldwide, including many multi-service operators and resellers mixing fixed, mobile, broadband and IP based services. If you’re planning to roll out a new generation of broadband and multi-play services, we may just have the answer you’re looking for.

Talk to us now to find out how Cerillion can help your business to prosper.
info@cerillion.com

Cerillion Implements Broadband Billing Solution for Bulldog Communications

London, UK, 4th July 2006 – Convergent Billing specialist, Cerillion Technologies, has announced the successful implementation of the Cerillion CRM and Billing solution for Bulldog Communications Ltd, a subsidiary of Cable and Wireless in the UK. Cerillion have implemented their Revenue Manager, CRM Plus, Mediator and Information Manager products to support Bulldog's VoIP and metered broadband services business, and performed the migration of the existing customer base to the new system.

"Our earlier investment in developing broadband-specific features is now bearing fruits in this very competitive market" commented Louis Hall, CEO of Cerillion Technologies. "We are delighted to be working with Bulldog and look forward to furthering the relationship in the future."

Reltelwireless Choose Cerillion For New Mediation Solution

London, UK, 18th July 2006 – Cerillion Technologies today announced a new contract with Reliance Telecommunications (Reltelwireless) to implement a complete mediation solution for their CDMA network in Nigeria. Cerillion will deliver their Mediator product and provide integration with network switches from Huawei.

The system will be used to improve revenue assurance in Reltelwireless, securing revenue generation from a full range of corporate and residential services. Mediator’s intuitive configuration tools and rules-based processing engine will support their time-to-market demands, whilst providing a complete audit trail and CDR traceability.

Kenneth Aigbinode, Vice Chairman Reliance Telecommunications, said “Mediation has become an important area of focus within Reltelwireless as we continue to develop our revenue assurance programmes. Cerillion have proven they understand our business and we are confident that their Mediator system will help us maximise our billable revenues.”

“Africa is a rapidly growing market and none more so than Nigeria,” added Louis Hall, CEO of Cerillion. “We are delighted to be working with Reltelwireless on this exciting mediation project, underlining our commitment to providing carrier-grade BSS and OSS solutions in the region.”

About Reliance Telecommunications Ltd

Reliance Telecommunications Limited (Reltelwireless) is a leading private telecom operator in Nigeria. The company commenced commercial operations in 2001 under a nationwide CDMA licence for wireless telecom services. With a presence across Nigeria and with Huawei switches in three geographically dispersed regions, Reltelwireless has won several awards and has twice been recognized as Nigeria’s ‘Best Telephone Company’. The company’s product offerings include voice and data services on CDMA 1x platform. Benefiting from Nigeria’s rapidly growing market, Reltelwireless is expanding its footprint and retooling to take full advantage of recently introduced unified licensing regime. The company is carefully choosing its partners for this growth phase.