NEW YORK-Extent Technologies is beta testing a new generation of software designed to help wireless carriers rate and bill multiple kinds of wireless services as customers are using them.
The first generation processed bills in batches well after the fact. More recent iterations provide real-time processing but only at the end of a communications session, said Jim Ishikawa, vice president of marketing and development.
“We are on the verge of third-generation billing. One of its key attributes is true real time, instead of being restricted to doing a bill at the end of a session,” he said.
Omnispan, Extent Technologies’ Internet Protocol operations support system, allows carriers “to bill for multiple kinds of media at the same time and to bill for transactions among simultaneous services,” Ishikawa added.
Billing for multiple kinds of media simultaneously would allow carriers to collect separate revenue streams from the same customer who, for example, is listening to music, which he or she puts on hold while taking or making a call.
Billing for transactions among simultaneous services would let a wireless provider charge more for data that is of particular interest to a customer at a given point in time.
“If you’re lost, you’d be willing to pay more for directions,” Ishikawa said.
Omnispan also is designed to facilitate customer relationship management objectives. As an example, providers can send a short message service alert to a prepaid customer whose account needs recharging. The carrier also would know if that end user has an MP3 player account, so it could use the same SMS to ask if he or she would like to prepay for additional units of this service.
“Rating tables, like spread sheets, are wonderful, powerful tools, but they are limited in allowing reconfiguration of variables,” Ishikawa said.
In general, Extent Technologies believes immediate and targeted marketing messages, based on instant knowledge of consumer usage patterns, will be far more successful than advertising fliers inserted into monthly bills.
“The take rate of customers for these is generally low,” he said.
Omnispan, scheduled for commercial release during the first half of 2001, handles registration and activation, authentication and authorization, provisioning, rating and billing, marketing and promotions, customer care and self care.
Founded in 1997 in Ramat Gan, Israel, the company now is headquartered in Reston, Va. Extent Technologies, which has telecommunications carrier customers in 35 countries, decided about 18 months ago to upgrade its own second-generation billing system, called RBI ISP.
“Networks are evolving into information utilities for Internet, wireless and wireline communications,” Ishikawa said.
“The problem is that second-generation billing systems, including RBI ISP, are not up to the task … of dealing with networks that are coming together to provide value-added services.”
With Omnispan, which is entirely Web-based, Extent Technologies has addressed what it sees as the limitations of earlier generations of billing and customer-care systems.
