Billing in Telecommunications

This IDC study investigates the evolution, adoption, and direction of billing solutions in the telecommunications sector. It outlines the development of billing from the earliest voice-only requirement through to today's complex value chain billing requirements for content being delivered over multiple channels including fixed wire, wireless, and the Internet. It includes assessments of the technology required to develop, deliver, and utilize applications in the business support systems (BSS) sector. It covers the drivers for billing solutions in wholesale, retail, and interconnect, as well as the value chains in business to consumer (B2C) billing of services including early adoption examples, trends, and future expectations.

This will be of value to telecommunications operators investigating the introduction, replacement, or supplementing of billing applications into their organizations; developers determining how and where to invest their resource; system vendors targeting this potentially lucrative market sector with software tailored to the new billing ecosystem; and enterprises wanting to market the content to operators, aggregators, and consumers directly.

The billing industry sector has seen some major changes since its peak before the dot-com bust around 2001 and has been consolidating through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). There has also been considerable activity by newer niche players providing solutions that act as adjunct billing and rating solutions for the new types of content. Operators have to decide whether to invest in additional new systems or in the amalgamation/replacement of legacy systems moving forward.

"With the introduction of many new types of content and services, the traditional telco billing systems, designed primarily for voice, have had to evolve rapidly. The phenomenal growth of prepaid subscribers needing real-time billing and the necessity for accurate revenue management in often complex value chains is driving this market forward," says Tony Poulos, contributing analyst, Telecommunications Research, IDC Asia/Pacific.