Converged billing moves up front

Five years ago, when convergence meant bringing together voice, data and video over the same access platform, those toiling in the back room thought the fastest path to a single bill was putting all the records together at the end of the process. As we rush toward the millennium, the idea of convergence has changed.

"It used to be voice over the cable network and video over copper," said Mark McCormack, executive vice president of Intertech, a St. Louis-based billing vendor. "Then people starting talking about offering local and long-distance on one bill. How we see it is the coming together of voice and data, and you define voice however you want."

Ironically, one of the biggest gating factors in getting service providers to deploy new services in the past has been billing. Unfortunately, billing often is the last piece of the new service puzzle to be put in place.

To combat that thought process, the latest converged billing platforms give carriers the ability to track and bill all types of services even if the carriers offer only one or two.

Case in point is Kenan Systems Corp.'s latest announcement. Late last month, the company unveiled an integrated billing and customer management system designed specifically for cable and satellite operators. In addition to handling video services, the Arbor/Broadband system includes modules for voice and high-speed Internet/data services. The package is the fourth from the Cambridge, Mass., company this year and follows specialty packages for the wireline, wireless and Internet service markets.

"In each case, we've packaged our core products and then built out specific functionality for each market," said Jim McCann, market development manager for Kenan. "We look across markets and find 80% of the common functionality. What we're driving to is that multiservice environment."

Among the modules Kenan is including in the customer care package are pieces for inventory management, service activation, a pay-per-view module and work force management.

"Cable operators are not looking to have multiple billing services for multiple services," McCann said.

John Hart, vice president of marketing for Saville Systems, said his company is following a similar philosophy in its convergent billing system. "We're trying to look at the strategy of our customers. We want guys that are in the market for the long haul."

Under the Saville architecture, billing is handled as part of a single package with raw billing data fed from several networks into one system and processed though different modules. When service providers want to turn up a new product, the company activates a new module.

In one installation at GTE, the carrier has seven different services being billed by one platform. The result is the company can, depending on regulatory restrictions, produce a single bill and begin offering cross-service promotions.

Developing a single platform also reduces the vendor's costs.

"If we have a new [carrier] that only wants to add long-distance service, it's a matter of just configuring the system," McCormack said. "There's not an upgrade. They don't have all the hooks, but the functionality is there."

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