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TeleManagement Forum Puts Spotlight on Billing
Forum Announces New Initiatives To Further Demonstrate Its Commitment To Tackling BSS, Billing and Revenue Assurance Within its ‘Lean Operator’ Framework
The TeleManagement Forum (www.tmforum.org) today announced a major initiative ultimately designed to achieve industry standardisation within the billing and revenue assurance environments. Key elements of the programme include:
• Three new billing technical teams that will work to build New Generation OSS (NGOSS)-based solutions in the billing and revenue assurance space
• Focus on the billing process flows within the TM Forum’s process framework (eTOM)
• Announcement of the Global Billing Association’s (GBA) involvement in the billing stream at TeleManagement World in Long Beach in October.
“This commitment to billing and revenue assurance is part of our strategic thrust to help the world’s operators become ‘Lean Operators’ - a shift that demands an overall approach to all of the systems and processes used by an operator to deliver services. This focus has driven a steady rise in new membership from BSS-focused companies,” said Keith Willetts, TM Forum Founder and Chairman. “These companies see the success the TM Forum is having in other arenas, and want to leverage the broader telecom software industry through well established TM Forum programmes such as the Technical Collaboration Programme, TeleManagement World Conference and Expo, Training programmes and our extensive web-based knowledge library.”
“Increasing the focus on BSS issues is an important step forward for the TM Forum and will be highly beneficial for the industry,” said Eric Priezkalns, Best Practice Manager, Revenue Assurance, Billing and Carrier Services at T-Mobile UK. “We consider ourselves to be near the forefront of Revenue Assurance thinking, but are always striving for ways to enhance our understanding and proactivity. The opportunity to discuss our challenges with other service providers and address these within the context of an integrated and industry-wide initiative is greatly appreciated and we look forward to accruing real business benefit.”
New Billing Technical Teams Expand the NGOSS Program
A new billing-focused effort on the eTOM team and three new NGOSS Application teams have been established to drive NGOSS standards forward into billing, revenue management and general BSS arenas. Specific team activities are:
• Billing extension to the eTOM – extension of the TM Forum’s highly successful business process framework, now a full ITU standard. This program will extend the eTOM more deeply into the billing, charging, and revenue assurance areas
• Revenue Assurance – definition of industry issues and best practices; validation and/or extension of revenue assurance issues into TM Forum’s NGOSS framework; initiation of a Catalyst project demonstrating progress in integrated revenue assurance solutions
• Content Charging – development of an industry position statement highlighting the issues associated with content and data charging; outline of an system architectural framework for content charging; collation of a comprehensive set of definitions for content and related terms and their application
• IN over IP Convergence – examination of how to utilise the intelligent network infrastructure to solve billing challenges.
Increase in Billing-Focused Companies Join TM Forum
Over the past year, the TM Forum has seen a rise in membership from billing vendors and an increased interest in billing related issues from service provider members.
“The importance of the TM Forum’s frameworks as 'living' operational models for telecoms operators is complemented by the detailed work of the 'Revenue Assurance', 'Data & Content Charging' and 'IP/IN/IT Convergence' teams,” said Sebastian Toke-Nichols, Director of Marketing, Convergys EMEA – a new Forum member since January 2004.
“This work reflects a new emphasis within TM Forum on many of the Billing and BSS related elements of the overall OSS/BSS mix and Convergys applauds and supports these important initiatives, designed to provide pragmatic solutions for the Telecoms operator community,” he added.
Like Convergys, Connexn, Openet, and Suntech Sp. Z.o.o. have recently been drawn to the TM Forum by the expanding focus on billing and BSS. Longer standing billing-oriented members include ADC Software Systems, Amdocs, and Azure Solutions.
Billing Initiative at TeleManagement World
The TM Forum will be welcoming the Global Billing Association (GBA) as Chair of the Billing Summit at TeleManagement World in Long Beach on October 12, 2004. This Summit provides a road map for billing and customer care. This event features service provider case studies and presentations from C-level executives from across the billing arena.
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