LHS floats amid PCS chaos

Don Warkentin asked me if I was a masochist." William Bobb, president of Atlanta-based billing vendor LHS Communication Systems, recounted the unlikely question from the Aerial Communications chief as he tried to explain how the two-year-old U.S. subsidiary of Germany's LHS group has come to win billing system contracts from several major personal communication services carriers.

While the question may seem odd to some, it's obvious enough for anyone who has been exposed to the PCS fray. To many, the topsy turvy world of PCS may be chaos defined. People with little experience are getting into the business of owning networks. Carriers are spinning wildly into debt before a single dollar is earned. Startups are taking on well-established cellular giants.

Yet PCS represents one of the most potentially lucrative supply opportunities around for vendors that can stand the roller coaster ride.

"I must love chaos," said Bobb.

Whatever works. In any case, LHS has not taken long to turn the corner from virtual obscurity in the U.S. to become a billing vendor along the lines of Pacific Bell Mobile Systems, Aerial Communications, Powertel, BellSouth Mobility DCS, Sprint PCS, Western Wireless and Pocket Communications.

Not bad for a system that started out - because of LHS' overseas background - as a solution for only GSM-based networks. That has since changed. In fact, last week LHS launched version 4.03 of its BSCS billing and customer care platform, which supports GSM, CDMA, TDMA, AMPS and IDEN networks. This exposes the company to many more business opportunities.

The BSCS platform's customizable client-server approach may have been one of the keys to its early success in the U.S. "Billing is moving away from the big service bureau approach to more of a client-server approach, and we came into the U.S. market as that was starting to happen," he said.

The platform's ability to offer basic server and on-line functions ranging from collection processing, rate planning and roaming administration to switch auditing, roaming data processing and event rating give it the depth to be a singular solution for carriers. However, it fits into multivendor billing suites for carriers that want heavily customized solutions. Pacific Bell Mobile Services and Sprint are good examples of the latter.

Pac Bell Mobile looked at many different billing solutions before finding one that could be easily mined for specific key functions, said Frank Casazza, vice president of the company.

For such deployments, LHS often aligns with development partners, including Andersen Consulting, Microsoft, Danet, IBM and others. "Carriers don't want to work with solutions that are difficult and expensive to change," said Bobb.

The LHS Group, founded in Germany, has vast experience with international networks, with deployments in more than 30 countries. Bobb seems to fit right in, having worked for U S West International implementing billing systems in such wireless frontiers as Russia and Latin America before being recruited to head LHS' U.S. campaign. The international experience serves the company and its leader well in entering the U.S. because, in terms of wireless billing trends, foreign carriers are leading their U.S. counterparts.

"In our experience, we can look across many different cultures and carriers and spot the trends that have been emerging. Things like over-the-air activation, SIM card use and prepaid applications were really happening overseas before anyone tried them in the U.S.," said Bobb. In fact, it is likely that the U.S. wireless industry is still two years away from widespread deployment of such services. Further, international carriers have been adroit in focusing on customer care.

The U.S., however, does have its wrinkles. With scores of companies of all sizes jumping into the water at once, the PCS environment here is characterized by its general unpredictability. Its participants are seeking differentiation through distinctive services, packaging and pricing.

Billing systems can either spur or kill efforts to differentiate, according to Bobb.

"Billing can be an anchor for how they are going to package their product. It can influence packaging decisions," said Bobb. "In a market where there are four to six competitors, everyone has coverage and customers don't care about what transmission technology is used. You have to compete on efficiency. How productively can you use your billing capabilities?"

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