BSCS iX Release 3 - New Features and Capabilities

Increased payment incentives for prepaid subscribers

Customer focused, flexible payment terms

End-to-end independent multi-business unit support

Comprehensive partner finance management

Full business support for all-IP based services

Integrated business intelligence capabilities

Greater safeguarding of revenue streams

Optimized operational efficiency and performance

 

Success in today’s converging markets requires communications providers to differentiate through a wide choice of tailored services, propositions, and superior customer service. BSCS iX Release 3 extends the payments incentive capabilities of previous versions for postpaid and prepaid subscribers. Service providers can reward frequent or high value top-ups and offer subscription based tariffs to all subscribers. A ‘Pay via Voucher’ feature provides alternative choice of payment for postpaid users who may not have access to a formal banking system.

In accordance with the latest IMS specifications, BSCS iX Release 3 builds on its predecessor’s capabilities with the introduction of new features that enable fixed and mobile convergence via a single number, a single contract, and a unified invoice. The new release also supports charging for multiple services within one session while backward rating mechanisms permit users to receive advance notice of remaining minutes or data volume. Release 3 also introduces the additional IMS requirement for charging data security via Transport Layer Protocol.

Communications service providers are becoming increasingly aware of the strategic importance of the data within their business systems. The challenge is to extract and transform this data to provide actionable business intelligence. BSCS iX Release 3, which incorporates Business Objects business intelligence software, facilitates business intelligence competency by enabling access to critical billing data with superior dashboard presentation and reporting capabilities.

BSCS iX Release 3 introduces enhanced functionality that supports the growing maturity and complexity of service providers’ partner-based business. New accounting functions enable business models requiring settlement of third party invoices while the new ’Accounting Center’ provides full overview and control over all partner transactions. BSCS iX Release 3 also enhances its managed billing services, such as MVNO billing. Advanced financial separation combined with service and marketing flexibility enables the operation of multiple independent business unit strategies within the same system.

Competition has the potential to significantly reduce service provider margins. BSCS iX Release 3 offers numerous tools and features to help secure revenue streams and optimize top-line performance. Service providers can set flexible payment terms to push payment morale, to correct billing errors through re-rating of events, and to leverage a web-services based interface to easily communicate with external collections systems. In addition, a new online charging fall-back system provides even more security of prepaid revenue streams.

LHS continually strives to help its customers to reduce costs and achieve the highest levels of efficiency and reliability within their billing operations. A new monitoring application allows insights into the heart of the system with the automation of typical operational tasks. BSCS iX Release 3 also introduces horizontal scalability for the charging subsystem. This means that hardware capacity can be progressively added through multiple smaller, less costly nodes. Further additional features optimize the operational robustness and reliability of online billing operations, such as high availability in customer care and the ability to make live updates to the on-line charging system. ß