Multi Operator Billing Operations

A Solution For Managing Wholesale, Multi Operator Billing Operations

Polkomtel SA is one of the three major mobile telecommunications carriers in Poland. Polkomtel operates under the brand Plus providing voice, SMS and data services – both mobile and fixed. The distinguishing features of its business are: high-level efficiency, innovative services and customer care. Polkomtel’s shareholders include the Vodafone Group. The Plus network covers 99% of the geographical area of Poland and provides services to 14 million customers. It operates within the GSM 900 and DCS 1800 systems and offers services in the UMTS standard as well as fixed line services within the WLR approach.

The Plus network was the first in Poland, and one of the first in the world, to implement CAMEL technology, which forms a part of 3G mobile telephony resources. Its application will enable customers to use services during international roaming which are currently only available in the home network. Polkomtel has pioneered innovative GSM-technology-based services on the Polish market.

Among other notable achievements, it was also the first company to offer MMS messaging,voicebased access to text messages (SMS), as well as GPRS and EDGE-based data transmission services. In September of 2004 Plus became the first operator in Poland to launch 3G mobile telephony services including UMTS. Polkomtel takes on quality and innovation as the first carrier to launch HSPA technology in 11 Polish cities, enabling data transfer up to 21 Mbps.

The Approach

The project began in May of 2006 with the first settlements being produced in December of the same year.
Project numbers:

Over 1.3 billion xDRs per month (voice, SMS, data)
Hundreds of partners (interconnect, interworking, multiple MVNOs)

The Business Need

The project scope was for new pricing and billing solutions supporting the wholesale business-to-business activities of Polkomtel. It covers areas from interconnect, interworking, to all types of MVNOs (Service Providers, External Service Providers, Full MVNOs).

During the tender, Comarch was competing with leading global billing system providers. The tender process encompassed, among others, a pilot version, reference visits and workshops. As a result, Comarch has been honored with the contract for delivery of the solution.

The Solution

The Comarch solution is based on its own Comarch InterPartner Billing product. Deployed at Polkomtel it serves:

Wholesale agreement management for Polkomtel Business Partners…

Interconnect Partners (fixed, mobile)
Interworking Partners (SMS, MMS)
MVNOs (Service Providers, External Service Providers, Full MVNOs)

…and Voice and non-voice services in one system; voice, video calls, SMS, MMS, Premium Services, data transfer, content

Must-have business functions such as rule-based rating and pricing, reporting and data exchange, dial plan management, settlement and tariff plan management, optimized routing calculation, automatic reconciliation, providing financial and statistical reports, integration with SSO (single sign-on) system

…integrations to external IT systems…

Mediation system (voice, SMS, data)
Data Warehouse
Polish National Dial Plan Repository
Central logging and monitoring system

…and must-know business features

Besides these must-have functions the solution offers very unique and robust features, such as the Advanced OnCharging Statistics module which provides data-warehouse-like functions including:

Delivery of traffic aggregates from different grouping perspectives at the usage data charging stage
For wholesale services the system operator can refer to daily statistics which grants the possibility to
compute correct settlement pricing based on revenue and cost generated by the given Service Provider.

A very important and more so evident point is that the system delivers and reads reports in the native MS Excel format (*.xls) which is standard for wholesale business activity.

The Results

Business and operational benefits for Polkomtel

Single point of truth – central, flexible solution for voice and non-voice, for all types of wholesale partners handling, for charging and billing
Current and new business services ready thanks to a rule-based solution already prepared for the processing of billions of records on a monthly basis (billing and revenue sharing)
Revenue protection and rapid reaction to improper revenue/cost ratios via an in-built, advanced reconciliation module and inter-operator revenue and cost statistics module
Real convergent solution:
- To serve voice and non-voice services (voice, SMS, data services, content-based)
- Network level convergence where the solution can handle services for any network transport layer (mobile/fixed, GPRS/UMTS)
- Partner experience convergence, where one wholesale business Partner can be served with different
  services, with its presentation within one system account.

Why Comarch?

"As of today, we have successfully implemented a national roaming agreement, all interconnect and SMS/MMS interworking agreements, as well as an MVNO platform granting us timeand cost-efficient implementation of ongoing and subsequent agreements. We have also implemented ‘Protector’; invented as a secure settlements file transfer system and Least Cost Routing mechanism, to date it supports the creation of Optimal Routing Tables for international traffic. Implementation processes have been ongoing throughout gross market changes, for example, we encountered several changes of requirements for interconnect agreements, with the most spectacular being the introduction of a Flat Rate model existing adjacently to a classic version, as well as the formation of MVNO business models culminating in numerous separate requirement options. In spite of this, we have always been certain of IPB flexibility, ensuring businesses are not limited to system functionalities."

Jerzy Szyper, Manager of the Wholesale Settlements Team
Polkomtel

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