 Intercarrier billing
All over the world, the telecommunication industry is being deregulated and new services are being offered by networks. As a consequence, the billing standards, which indicate the measurements, document the formats and the manners of transfer of billing-related information within a network, are being continually revised and are moving towards convergence. Since the companies are at liberty to use different billing standards or different revisions of the billing standards, clearing houses often come up with interpretation of services between different billing standard formats.
Using industry standard billing systems is essential to processes such as revenue sharing, partner settlement, authorisations and denials of service and also the ability to use the data collected for marketing and customisation of services. Getting the systems to accept standardised input makes an easier operational model for the service providers and the trading partners, who form a part of the value chain. Voice and data services have greater complexity and to settle such matters, industry collaboration on accounting is vital. This will also reduce the market time for new services and features.
There are many billing standards. They include Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR), Automated Message Accounting (AMA), Cellular Intercarrier Billing Exchange Roamer (CIBER), and Transferred Account Procedures (TAP). CIBER is a billing standard that has been designed to promote intercarrier roaming between cellular and other wireless telephone systems. The CIBER format is developed and maintained by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). The billing services are designed to help providers remain up to date with the increasing complexity of carrier interconnections, billing and customer care.
Software such as Aptis Inter CarrierICP ensures that the carriers can track and charge for local carrier-to-carrier traffic. Due to the increase in the number of Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) in the US and other countries, a single call can traverse many incumbent, interexchange and CLEC networks and there can be up to seven tariffed access charges to various entities per call. Issues that are being worked out include the jurisdiction for proper billing and taxing when calls that originate on wireless and some CLEC networks are terminated. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), US, has been working on intercarrier compensation. Though it may take some time for these issues to be sorted out, convergence is likely to make the process of billing and accounting more rational. | 
01-05-2006, 08:07 AM
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