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WAP and Billing:What are the challenges

Tero Huostila

Sonera Ltd

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Agenda

Billing Expert Group work in WAP Forum Questions: What, Who and How? What to bill? Who does the billing? How to bill? Operator example: Sonera Challenges Conclusion

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Billing Expert Group

WAP specification is written without billing elements

Operators suggested a special group in Montreux Billing Expert Group officially started in San Francisco

in June 99 Now the real work has started Task:

Gather billing requirements in WAP Match the requirements with WAP specification Push working groups to make changes if needed

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Airtime Minutes Amount of data packets

Content Service and information costs money

Both Combine first two

What to bill?

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Players

Operator: Services paid with phone bill

Content provider: Sends bills directly to customer

Billing Agency: Some operators use billing agencies to handle their billing

Credit card company Services used is charged by credit card company

Combination of those

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How to Bill? Transaction based billing

Services are paid according to service usage Different prices possible for different services

Flat rate One price for all Maybe bearer depended

Monthly fee Subscription based

Free Content provider might want pay the airtime to operator

Combination

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Case: Sonera information Services Transaction based billing

Prices differ between services $0,20 - $1,80 Price is same with plain SMS and WAP For WAP over GSM data additional data fee: $0,20 / min +

$0,10 / call

Future: Flexibility to do changes, all mechanism are in place

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Challenges Two worlds collide!

Free internet world vs. Traditional telecommunication sector

Roaming At the moment only bearers roam Service roaming difficult if transaction based billing is used Minimum set of parameters should be specified in WAP

Forum In case of GSM roaming, WAP must be added in TADIG

format if service roaming is in use.

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Conclusion

Billing is very market sensitive problem One solution not possible

Billing Expert Group tries to get the pieces in place in WAP specification

Challenge: Free vs. price In the end: Markets will decide

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THANK YOU !