brochure - interconnect billing

8/3/2019 Brochure - Interconnect Billing

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BrochureTelecommunications

Comarch Interconnect Billing

How to reach reasonable OPEX andrapid time-to-market?

Comarch Headquarters

Al. Jana Pawa II 39 a31-864 KrakowPoland

phone: +48 12 64 61 000fax: +48 12 64 61 100e-mail: [email protected]

www.telecommunications.comarch.com

www.comarch.com www.comarch.pl www.comarch.deComArch Spka Akcyjna with its registered seat in Krakw at Aleja Jana Pawa II 39 A, en tered in the National Court Register kept by theDistrict Court for Krakw-rdmiecie in Krakw, the 11th Commercial Division of the National Court Register under no. KRS 000057567.The share capital amounts to 7,960,596.00 z. The share capital was fully paid, NIP 677 - 00 - 65 - 406Copyright Comarch 2008. All Rights Reserved.

EN-2009.01


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Introduction

The Comarch Interconnect Billing Solution is designed for all telecommunication operators and service

providers who maintain relations with other providers and therefore have the need to exchange

settlements, invoices and share revenue or costs. It is mainly designed for mobile and fixed operators

and offers full support in handling billing-related processes for origination, termination and transition of

services through the operators network, as well as roaming related billing processes for mobile

operators.

This solution, based on the Comarch InterPartner Billing system, enables you to handle any service

type using one platform. It is a full, convergent system that handles voice, data, SMS, MMS, premium

or modern content services and even roaming. All these aspects can be efficiently managed using this

carrier-grade solution supporting you in your everyday operations and business development.

We know that a billing solution is crucial for business performance. We know that it is not deployed for

only one year. We know that it must be future-proof as such a solution has been designed to serve

not only today but also tomorrows services regardless of network type or the partners that you deal

with.

Figure 1. Interconnect Billing Solution


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Key Challenges

Powerful Interconnect Billing Charging and Accounting

This Comarch solution is capable of managing all kinds of inter-carrier agreements, including cascade

and direct billing. The system is an ideal tool for the entire processing operation from single event

records to interconnect reports and features discounting, revenue sharing and invoicing capabilities.

Importantly, this solution offers a broad range of possibilities for charging event records (usage data),

including call duration, number of bytes or packets sent, pulses, or any kind of measured value

delivered by record. The charge can be calculated by a combination of factors including, among

others, call origination, destination and class.

To protect your business we have invented a set of functionalities for Revenue Control & PerformanceManagement, allowing you to choose the best interconnect partners and best routing plan with

Routing Optimizer. After planning the efficient routing it is possible to easily upload it to the network

using the Network Configuration Management functionality.

This solution supports interfaces for integration with existing financial systems, but may also maintain

its local sub-ledger. In this way you can decide if you want to issue partner/supplier invoices within the

financial system or within the InterPartner Billing System.

To define prices for your partners and define prices of your suppliers the solution contains an intuitive

interface for manual price and agreements configuration, as well as automatic dial plans loading from

text end MS Excel files.

Advanced and intelligent reporting with a set of predefined reports helps support you in managing your

business and determining its performance.

As you cooperate with partners and suppliers you will find that some of them are not as large in size

as you are. For smaller partners it is better to give them web access to their profile and allow them to

access their subscription data, self manage agreements and view service related usage.

The Comarch InterPartner Billing is compliant with the most important industry standards and

guidelines including ITU, GSMA, TMFORUM and ETIS.

Multiple Traffic Types for Voice and Non-voice Services

Comarch InterPartner Billing enables you to handle any service type using one convergent system

which support voice, data, SMS, MMS, premium or modern content services and even roaming.

Created charges cover one-off fees (e.g. signing-up the contract for a given service), recurring fees

(e.g. monthly/quarterly/yearly fee for maintaining the service), usage-based fees (e.g. fee for SMS,

data transferred in or out) and billing-period fees (e.g. discount on monthly summary when the given

threshold of traffic is reached).

The system handles billing including financial document creation, accounting, exporting data to

general ledgers and (when needed) tax calculation, debt collection and payments loading.


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Settlements Requiring High Performance for Vast Amounts of Usage DataProcessing

While defining the requirements for the solution our computer scientists applied state-of-the-art

technological achievements and many years of experience in the construction and implementation of

the efficient mass data processing mechanisms, creating the very heart of the platform.

Within an architectural context, its main processing engine is a multi-threaded component that allows

parallel processing of any event data. Moreover, the kernel was constructed to allow for the expansion

of the systems functionality with standard or customized plugins.

The systems efficiency makes it possible to process even complex tariff definition quickly and

accurately. The system was built to process extensive volumes of data, while its flexibility and

openness enables it to deal with the problems facing big and small operators alike.

A Sophisticated Solution to Handle Regulated Services

This Comarch solution supports operators in all complex relationships with partners and suppliers and

provides core features like agreements management and workflow processes designed for regulated

services support such as BSA, LLU, WLR with dispute management, orders handling, SLA auditing

and managed communication channels.

Additionally, there is a set of features which helps mobile operators with handling MVNOs in their

networks and with properly exchanging settlements with them even if there are no real Points of

Interconnection with MVNOs.

Agreement Management in Relation to Modern Services, Partners and Suppliers

Interconnect business means working with partners and managing relationships with them. Comarch

is giving you the tool for managing your agreements and relationships with partners and suppliers as a

part of the Interconnect Billing solution. Additionally, to support you in resolving all disputes with

partners and suppliers, this solution automates Dispute Management and Reconciliation of Settlement

Reports.

When dealing with multiple partners, it is important to provide proper standards for the relationship. To

ensure the cultivation of mutually fruitful partnerships, a carrier must have all the necessary

information (including detailed partner data and settlements) presented in one location to simplify the

operation.

Comarch InterPartner Billing provides a professional Partner Management functionality that covers the

entire settlement process for all partnerships, including defining business agreements, loading, rating

and generating settlements.

Reasonable OPEX, High Flexibility and Short Time to Market

A billing solution is crucial for business performance and is not deployed for only one year. It must be

future-proof as such a solution has been designed to serve not only today but also tomorrows

services regardless of network type or the partners that you deal with.


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The modular and object-oriented construction of the solution allows for fast and easy implementation

of new services offered by carriers in harmony with their development. These changes do not require

modification of the application code, owing to the universal construction of the system, which consistsof a secure kernel and subsystems containing parameterized services and settlement agreement

rules.

The Comarch InterPartner Billing system is a configurable product. During its construction, emphasis

was placed on making the system flexible and easy to use and to ensure that changes could be

introduced to the system without modifying the systems code.

Ready-To-Use technology enables the development of new business rules on-the-fly. The system

allows operators to prepare new partner revenue-sharing techniques without modifying the existing

application code.

The capability to efficiently and accurately charge customers for provided services is one of a carriers

primary requirements. This solution allows accounting for a full range of services, including

conventional telephony, GSM, UMTS, ISDN, intelligent networks, cable and interactive television,

content and other IP-based services. Comarch prepares carriers for next generation

telecommunication products (i.e. 4G), ensuring that companies are ready and able to implement and

gain revenue from their new products before they are introduced to the market.

Functionality of the Solution

Interconnect Agreements

The Comarch Interconnect Billing Solution makes it possible to bill inter-carrier connections. Different

types of connections include:

Outgoing connections initiated by a client of a home network, terminated by a client of another

network operator

Incoming connections initiated by a client of a different operator, terminated by a client of the

home network

Transit connections initiated and terminated outside of the home network (only passing

through the exchange, and network, of the home operator)

Reverse charge connections although the connection is initiated by operator A, the fee for theconnection is charged to operator B, who is then required to pay operator A for the connection.

Figure 2. Types of interconnecting traffic


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Support for the above connection types allows for the defining of all agreement types currently used

on the market which include:

Balanced

Balanced Outgoing

Volume Commitment

Threshold

Volume Swap

And more.

Inter-carrier traffic can be charged in a variety of ways. Comarch InterPartner Billing supports different

methods of clearing, including the two most commonly used: cascade and direct. The system also

enables the use of revenue-sharing rules and advanced discounting based on a wide range of

parameters including:

Location of call origination and termination

Dialed prefixes

Dialed and connected numbers

Origination and termination network operators

Class of calls

Aggregated traffic for a given direction

Discounting for specific time periods (e.g. promotions).

Revenue Control & Performance Management

This aspect consists of quality, margin and performance control. The quality control consists of using

parameters like ASR, ABR, NER, ACD, MCT and PDD/PGRD/PGAD to optimize and utilize it within

advanced reporting.

Margin control is a crucial part of the Revenue Control functionality and can be performed in near real-

time using volume, revenue and cost attributes.

Performance control is connected with business performance measurement, and is focused on the

monitoring of traffic volume, balances and thresholds covered by agreements, as well as KPI

monitoring.

Those tools optionally integrated with OSS Mediation allow for collecting network-specific data directly

from switches, monitoring the correctness of routing configuration, as well as receiving real-time

service status updates.

Dispute Management & Reconciliation

Dispute management is necessary due to ambiguously defined agreements, discrepancies in

reference data, fraud, problems with payments, differences in charge and settlement reports and

many more everyday problems experienced with partners and suppliers.

The solution uses problem categorization and knowledge databases, multilevel contract acceptanceand validation, automated reconciliation from top level to detailed CDR/EDR elements, alerts and SLA

audits, and entire cross organization workflow processes for work automation.


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Routing Management

Routing optimization and management is connected with traffic forecasting (per product, agreement

and destination), using this predicted traffic and agreement configuration to find the most suitable

routing rules. This routing optimization uses physical network topology and many optimization

parameters, including network capacity, quality, costs, traffic volume, and business rules amongst

others.

Within extended solutions for wholesale departments routing management is an essential part of the

trading functionality.

Invoicing

The Invoicing module enables configuring and creating invoices for partners and suppliers, together

with all processes connected with payment collection and automatic call blocking for small partners.

Contact between a carrier and its customer is often limited to an invoice. The content and layout of

invoices can be viewed as an extension of the carrier, similar to a business card. Therefore, the value

of an invoices appearance and accuracy cannot be underestimated. This Comarch solution offers

advanced mechanisms for adjusting the appearance and content of invoices (e.g. templates can be

designed using a text editor) to meet the requirements of specific customers. Invoices can also be

enhanced with analytical information, such as summaries for various subscriptions or the number of

connections with a particular number.

Additionally, Comarch InterPartner Billing stores information contained in the invoice in the same

format in which the partners receive it, which is helpful when handling complaints or discrepancies.

Revenue Sharing

Revenue sharing is based on settlements, placing added importance on the knowledge and

information needed to accurately share collected funds with many different service providers.

Comarch InterPartner Billing supplies:

Advertising, promotional and sponsored services for every individual service

Possibility for configuring levels of commitment (time and money related)

Penalty mechanism in the event of service failure

QoS-based rating related to the degradation of services provided by third parties

Cumulative and non-cumulative tiered settlements

Flat commission calculated as a percentage of revenue per account and event different

rates depending on the specific event and service

Multi-party hierarchies revenue sharing between multiple partners

E-commerce and pre-rated transactions commission per purchase

Proportional rating and roll-over mechanisms

Discounts, cross-product discounts and surcharges

Interconnection agreements handles all functions starting from the point of interconnectionto agreements, financial documents and reporting configuration.


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When processing events, the system applies relevant charges as defined in the tariff management

module. Such charges are generated using many variables (and combinations of variables, also):

Amount of time expended

Volume of data

Level of service activity

Number of times accessed

Loyalty discounts (e.g. gold provider)

Other user-defined conditional bases for charging.

The system supports tax management and offers flexible rerating and undo settlement generation

mechanisms.

Comarch InterPartner Billing delivers a range of up-to-date reports that present essential information,

including:

Provider/service usage through separate revenue-sharing and usage reports for carriers and

their respective subscribers, with optional parameters such as bearer type, prepaid, postpaid,

etc.

Separate revenue-sharing service and usage reports for providers (e.g. multiprovider

services) and individual revenue-sharing service reports for products composed of more than

one service (services can be rated differently).

Figure 3. Charge and discount management screen

Network Configuration Management

Network configuration, which is an optional extension to the solution, manages two layers:Provisioning and the Business layer. The Provisioning layer performs the automatic uploading of

routing plans directly to switches, together with providing temporary alternative routes. Updates may


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be scheduled for off-peak hours and full switches configuration backup can be performed before

reconfiguration. On the Business layer, the system prevents network loopbacks and manages rollback

procedures.

Services, Prices and Prefixes Management

Prices & Prefixes Management allows complex dial plan loading and management, together with dial

plan validation and testing. Automatic loading and verification is supported to help in mass price and

prefix updating.

Comarchs solution allows carriers to define an unlimited number of private and third-party services,

which can be grouped into packages of unlimited complexity. Each service or service package can be

introduced, sold, or withdrawn at any time without adversely affecting the rating results.

The Flexible Discountmodule can calculate sophisticated reductions in accordance with freely-defined

parameters (volume, time, periods, users, services or calls). It is also possible to base discounts on

the usage of other services. Service configuration is supported by rule-based mechanisms. All the

tariffs can be grouped and all the hierarchies can be defined. Rating parameters can be assigned to

users, groups of users, objects, and/or periods. A complete history is then stored in the system for

journaling.

Although the rating and service algorithms can be very complex, it is an extremely straightforward

process to create them. With this Comarch system, service and rating activities support strategy

planning, enabling carriers to develop proactive and visionary methods of gaining an optimal market

share.

Clearing, Financial Management and G/L IntegrationThe Financial and Accounting module offers full control over financial transactions of partner accounts.

Clearing periods and deadlines can be freely modified, while a customers credit can be monitored to

avoid any overcharging issues arising. All financial documents are immediately made available to the

carriers partners service department. Payments that are introduced into the system are assigned to

corresponding charging documents. Details of every single entry of a customers account settlement

are displayed on-line and can be critical in certain situations (e.g. complaints). The system also

provides automatic access to archived data. Flexible and detailed reporting of financial data improves

control and management of a carriers finances.

The Wholesale Billing Solution can be integrated with many popular G/L systems with out-of-box

interfaces. The Internal Accounting module may be used and periodic reports can be sent to theexternal G/L system. Integration may also be performed on a low level without using internal

accounting mechanisms, and in this way full accounting is performed within the external G/L system.

Partner/Supplier Relationship Management

An operators business is connected with high interaction with partners and suppliers. High service

quality requires strong support in managing all relationships with partners and suppliers, and so

requires the automation of most work required to run this type of business.

This solution can handle many voiceand non-voiceagreement types, such as wholesale and transit

agreements, bilateral and swap, as well as typical agreements including balanced, balanced ongoing,

commitment, threshold, volume swap and more. Agreement Management, as part of thePartner/Supplier Relationship Management module, manages agreements with suppliers and

partners.


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Appropriate inter-partner settlements and revenue control scenarios between operators and partners

are needed when service offerings for end subscribers increase. One contributing factor to the

increasing role of third parties is the regulation that aims to increase competition on the market.Changing business models, with an increasing number of partners involved in business scenarios,

results in an increase in the amount of money on the wholesale market. Furthermore, Partner

Relationship Management is assuming an essential role within this type of business.

Comarchs solution supports operators in all complex relationships with partners and suppliers, and

provides core features, such as agreements management, workflow processes, regulated services

support (BSA, LLU, WLR), dispute management, orders handling, SLA auditing and managed

communication channels.

Partner Relationship Management is a functionality allowing operators to view all central business

operations. During the design process, great emphasis was placed on creating clear and reliable

functionalities to ensure operators could obtain accurate information.

Operator has quick access to:

Partner related data

Address

Contact person

Services provided

Rating units

Currency

Taxes

Account information for every individual partner

Invoice details

Payment status

Credits/debits

Agreement related data

Flat fees

Recurring/nonrecurring charges

Penalty and discount mechanism

Revenue sharing algorithm

Historical data for every individual provider/service.This Comarch solution supports application, commerce, and kontent-based partnerships, as well as all

forms of carrier-to-provider relationships and roaming. The system manages essential information

regarding business partners and agreements and allows carriers to define services such as charging

rules, discounts schemas and currencies.

Partner Relationship Management presents complex data in a simple and easy-to-read format. For

each partner, carriers can find:

Contact data

Financial details

Organizational hierarchy

Referential data Settlement agreements

Usage data


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Figure 4. Partner-related data management screen

Figure 5. Architecture of the Partner Relationship Management Module


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Data, Content and Next Generation Services

We have entered the 21st

century with new solutions in the field of information exchange/data

transmission through telecommunication and IT networks. The mass media is dominated with rhetoric

of a global village. However, a new problem is looming for operators of wide (skeleton) and access

networks, namely, mutual billing for the services provided. Comarchs solution has been designed to

meet these needs. It features inbuilt mechanisms for the billing of IP services, including those which

are already in use and those which have only been tested and are operating as trial implementations,

such as NGN and IMS based services.

The system makes it possible to charge for services based on a very broad range of information

gathered from the network and can also manage inter-carrier billing processes relevant to parameters

related to the quality of the provided services.

Support for New Business Models

The increasing number of services being provided to end-users has forced many carriers to expand

their business models and range of offerings. The answer to this contemporary challenge is

cooperation or partnership with a third party. This particular solution presents carriers with the

opportunity to satisfy the most demanding needs of their clients. Although such a relationship involves

income sharing, it also means that a certain degree of risk and responsibility is shared with the third

party.

Comarch InterPartner Billing features multi-party settlements, revenue sharing and an interconnect

calculations functionality. It covers the entire settlement process for all partnerships, including defining

business agreements, loading, rating and generating settlements. The system manages essential

information regarding business partners and agreements, and allows carriers to define services

including charging rules, discount schemas and currencies. Even if the business chain is particularly

complex, our system tracks all cash flows, ensuring carriers obtain the highest revenue possible.

Compliance with Local Laws

The Comarch InterPartner Billing system covers certain areas where compliance with local laws is

binding. Thus, all specific local regulations are carefully analyzed and implemented during deployment

of the system at the carriers site. All configurations associated with legislative changes can be

completed by an administrator during system use.

Mass Data Processing and Monitoring

Mass data processing, including record rating, settlement generation, and information exchange with

banks, are automated, configurable and easy to use in the graphical, intuitive interface. Mass data

processing can be suspended and resumed without harming the final result. Progress bars provide a

visual representation of the settlement billing cycle and help the user track the process. Detailed error

reports can also be produced.

Information related to the process is displayed and allows the operator to plan his/her time and

strategies efficiently. In order to increase the performance of the entire system, it is often wise to delay

certain events. Using Comarchs solution, carriers can optimize their resources by using the task

scheduling mechanism. For example, billing procedures can be performed at night when the system isnot being used for day-to-day operations.


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Partner Self Care Portal

To improve efficiency and comfort for operators and their partners, Comarch has created an additional

web-based solution Comarch Partner Self Care. It can be used by operators to create and manage

relations with partners and interconnecting parties. It allows partners to access their information

online, register new services and manage contracts. The Comarch Partner Self Care module

significantly reduces the time required for deploying new services and simplifies contact between

operators. The web-based module is usually accessible through the public Internet and boasts

security features that allow users to work safely with the system. Comarch Partner Self Care is

equipped with a BPM engine, which controls the processes and interaction of all elements.

Security on All Levels and All Phases

To protect the systems data, the InterPartner Billing system includes advanced applied security

measures. However, security is not only connected to encoding and protecting system data. It has tobe managed on multiple system levels from end-user, configuration, database and network and in all

phases of the system lifecycle - from its implementation to operation.

SSLsupportinenduserportalapplicationsEnduser

Doublechangesapprovalforalteredconfiguration(offers,prices,)

Advanceduser/grouppermissionconfiguration (screens,reports,processes)

Auditreports

Configuration/Administration

Userpasswordsandsecuredataencoding

CarriergradeOracledatabase

JournalinganddatachangeloggingDatabase

Separationforenduserportals,CMRandcorebillingdatabase

FirewallsbetweenzonesNetwork

Figure 6. Security on all levels

SwitchoverbackupproceduresImplementation

Dataandapplicationbackup

Automatedconfigurationcopying betweeninstancesOperation

HighAvailability

Clusteredhardware

Geographicaldistribution

Servicecontinuity

Figure 7. Security on all phases


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Business Scenarios

Interconnect Scenario

An interconnect scenario is described in the figure below.

Operator (DemoTel) routes interconnection traffic between its partners

Interconnect partner (DemoPartner1) Operator that provides VoIP services to the customers

Interconnect partner (DemoPartner2) Operator that provides mobile services to the customers

Customer (John Smith) subscriber who receives a VoIP service from DemoPartner1

Customer (Joe Stevens) subscriber who receives a mobile phone service from DemoPartner2

Figure 8. Sample interconnect scenario

When John Smith calls Joe Stevens, VoIP operator DemoPartner1 routes the call to DemoTels

network. DemoTel transforms the IP data traffic into voice traffic and routes the call to DemoPartner2s

network. The call is now established between John Smith and Joe Stevens.

DemoTel does not send an invoice to John Smith and Joe Stevens for the interconnection traffic.

Instead, interconnection reports are exchanged between DemoPartner1 and DemoTel, and between

DemoTel and DemoPartner2, based on the IP data records (IPDRs) and call data records (CDRs)

regarding the interconnection traffic between networks. When DemoTel receives an interconnection

report from either of the partners, it can easily locate the discrepancies between its own report and a

partners report by using the reconciliation features of Comarch InterPartner Billing.


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Revenue Sharing Scenario

When compared to todays services, the services of earlier years were basic with easily calculable

charging scenarios generally leading to a quick and easy-to-track cash flow. Currently, in an

increasingly active market, customers are demanding new, sophisticated products. As a result,

carriers operating single-handedly cannot become market leaders who are able to fulfill the

requirement of every single customer. Engaging in partnerships means sharing risks and

responsibilities with third parties, although sharing the revenue generated from the relationships poses

a major challenge for carriers.

Figure 9. Relations and money flow between telco parties

This diagram illustrates a sample service and cash flow both demand well-designed infrastructure

and proper systems from the billing provider to provide services and an application capable of

handling complete and sensitive information regarding partners and their settlement agreements.

This business example can be depicted by a real life scenario:

Billing provider (DemoTel) service aggregator presenting aggregated services and providing

billing to the end customer, can settle with partners and share revenue,

Service provider (Win&Lose co.) offers on-line betting customers can place a bet using

SMS or WAP-enabled phones, this provider does not possess infrastructure to present its

services nor does it produce a bill for the end consumer, thus making a deal with the service

aggregator and agreeing to the aggregators settlement conditions.

Content provider (AdCompany) this provider sends advertisements to the end users. The

advertisements are aggregated to the other content by DemoTel.

Customer (John Smith) the consumer who desires access to the betting services via

telephone, SMS, WAP.


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Figure 10. Sample revenue sharing scenario

The end customer (John Smith) subscribes to a betting service that is delivered through the operator.

The end customer pays the operator for the usage of the service. The operator also charges a service

fee (e.g. a monthly fee) to the content provider. The end users payment for the usage of the betting

service is shared between the operator (DemoTel) and the service provider (Win&Lose) using a

specific ratio. The advertisements that AdCompany sends are paid to the DemoTel.

Comarch value proposition

You might be asking yourself why you should choose Comarch Interconnect Billing Solution over any

solution proposed by our competitors. Take a look at some of its unique features that you might not

find in most of the alternative offers you come across:

All services on one platform Handling voice, data, messaging and content services

Multiple settlement types Bilateral agreements, Hubbing, Revenue Sharing, Roaming, Content

based billing and more

Carrier grade performance Hundreds of millions of events per day, (more than 50M events/1h

@4CPU), scalability and reliability

Efficient partner management with the Partner Management module

Support for regulated services WLR, LLU, BSA and MVNO

Strong support during business changes and adherence to regulations with flexible

configuration and powerful inbuilt aggregating engine

Low Total Cost of Ownership OPEX, low cost upgrades

Krzysztof KwiatkowskiBSS Product Manager

Comarch SA

brochure - interconnect billing

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