© 2006 Ergon Informatik AG 1 Ergon’s comprehensive service fulfilment & billing solution for telecom service providers & CNOs SwiNOG 13, Bern November.

© 2006 Ergon Informatik AG 1

Ergon’s comprehensive service fulfilment & billing solution for telecom service providers & CNOs

SwiNOG 13, Bern November 1st, 2006

Hans-Jürg SchneiderVP Telecom Solutions & Business Applications

Taifun

2© 2006 Ergon Informatik AG

ContentsContents

• Ergon Informatik AG• Taifun @ customers• Service Fulfilment & Billing• High automation of Offer to Cash process• Specific capabilities for Cable Network

Operators


Ergon Informatik AG

• Founded 1984• HQ in Zurich, Switzerland• Market focus

– Switzerland, Europe

• Business focus– Telecom, Banking, Industry, Authorities

• Technology focus– Java, J2EE, HTML, AJAX, Oracle

• Building Telecom solutions since 15 years.


Ergon OSS/BSS solutions• Taifun Service Fulfilment & Billing Suite

– Covering the full End2End customer facing processes, from offering to cash collection

– implementing all billing scenarios forresidential, business, wholesale & inter carrier

– Specific B2B capabilities such as automated offer and contract document generation

• TelcoBill Electronic Bill Presentment &Cost Manager Solution– Web-based Bill presentment and

real time graphical cost analysis

– Specific B2B capabilities such as cost assignment to cost centers orinventory management

– Extends Taifun to EBP


Taifun CRM & Billing Suite @ customers I

• Initially developed in 1997 for Swisscom and put into production at tesion (now Versatel, Germany), estel (France), UTA (Austria) and Swisscom Italy (now grapes telecom, Italy). Taifun is based on a solution built by ergon for UBS (largest swiss bank) for the management of the UBS worldwide telecom services.

• Swisscom Solutions will introduce Taifun for the service management of its “large customer segment”.

• Cablecom, switzerland‘s largest CNO, uses Taifun for the management and billing of all their business line products.

• UPC Broadband, a european holding with cablecom being part of it, introduces Taifun for all its business service divisions.

• Globalzone, a swiss Reseller having more than 30‘000 customers, switches to Taifun per 1.1.2006 .

• Ringier, the largest swiss publishing company, uses Taifun to offer, sell & bill digital images per 1.2.2006 .


Taifun CRM & Billing Suite @ customers II

• Wasserwerke Zug and Stadtantennenwerke Baar having nearly 100‘000 and over 10‘000 customers resp., use Taifun for the management and billing of their „Triple-Play“ (Voice, Data, TV) services.

• The Taifun Workflow Engine and Taifun WebPortal are used for order entry, service provisioning and service billing of all telecom services used by the UBS group world wide.

• Sunrise (TDC Switzerland, Nr. 2 swiss carrier), Versatel Germany and telenet Belgium use TelcoBill to offer their private and business customers realtime bill analysis and cost control.

• Meinecom, a CH-Reseller, fully automates the end to end customer process with Taifun and TelcoBill.

• AugustaKom, a bavarian carrier, uses Taifun to manage and bill their entire product portfolio. Two other bavarian carriers, M“net and NEFkom, will be migrated to Taifun starting July 2006.


Taifun functional overview

ServiceOffer, Order, Contract,

Services

ServiceOffer, Order, Contract,

Services

BillingRating, Discounting, Invoice Generation,

Bill Archive

BillingRating, Discounting, Invoice Generation,

Bill Archive

ProvisioningWorkflow based

Provisioning

ProvisioningWorkflow based

Provisioning

TelcoBillOnline Bill Presentment

Bill Analysis &Cost control

TelcoBillOnline Bill Presentment

Bill Analysis &Cost control

Web PortalOrder entry &

Customer Self Care

Web PortalOrder entry &

Customer Self Care

Service Management CRMResource Management

ProductPrices, Discounts,

Business Transactions

ProductPrices, Discounts,

Business Transactions

MediationCDR, UDR, ..Mediation

CDR, UDR, ..

CustomerAddress, Contact,

Finance, Ticket

CustomerAddress, Contact,

Finance, Ticket

ResourcesPhone numbers, Devices, ..

ResourcesPhone numbers, Devices, ..Network Customer

Billing

Fulfilment


Taifun system overview

Service, OSSService Platforms and Operational Support Systems

Order Mgmt

Offering & CalculationOffering & Calculation

Contract ManagementContract Management

Contact ManagementContact Management

Service ManagementService Management

Product ManagementProduct Management

Dial-Number Management

Dial-Number Management

MediationFilter & Rule Management

MediationFilter & Rule Management

Guiding & RatingTariff Management

Guiding & RatingTariff Management

BillingDiscount Management

BillingDiscount Management

Invoice GenerationArchive Management

Invoice GenerationArchive Management

Role ManagementUser & Access Rights

Role ManagementUser & Access Rights Workflow Management

Business Process Modeling

Workflow ManagementBusiness Process Modeling

A/R, Collection & ERPNavision Finance Mgmt.

A/R, Collection & ERPNavision Finance Mgmt.

Opportunity MgmtSuperOffice

Opportunity MgmtSuperOffice

Legend

Taifun Suite

recommended

Electronic Bill Presentment & Analysis

TelcoBill

Electronic Bill Presentment & Analysis

TelcoBill

Service ManagementWholesale & Business

Customers

Service ManagementWholesale & Business

CustomersSwisscom CPS

Number Activation

Swisscom NOT DBTrouble Number Directory

BAKOM INAINet Server

BAKOM ONPINet Server

Interface toexternal system*

SFTP ServerBilling Data Transfer

Interface to internal system*

Phone BooksCommon & individual

Print shopPostscript/PDF

Customer Mgmt Billing Web Portal

Service Provisioning

Direct Debit, LSV+, ..Collection

Provisioning, CDR

TaifunService Fullfilment and Billing

Wholesale/Carrier Service ManagementSOAP/XML Interface

Swisscom DirectoriesPublic Number Directory

Data ServiceData Switching Platform

Data ServiceData Switching PlatformVoice Service

Voice Switching Platform

Voice ServiceVoice Switching Platform Video Service

Video Delivery Platform

Video ServiceVideo Delivery Platform Application Service

ISP/other Services

Application ServiceISP/other Services

HFCDOCSIS, PC, PCMM

DVB, Analog

Technical Provisioning

DSLEthernet

IP

FiberEthernet

IPAccess

Other

Network platforms

Transport, OSSTransport & Access

BSSBusiness Support Systems

DOCSIS Provisioning Broadband Command

Center

DOCSIS Provisioning Broadband Command

Center

(*) part of Taifun


Comprehensive Product Catalogue covering all business automation aspects• A central product catalogue is the swiss army knife

of the product manager to seamlessly define:– Business transactions for automated service activation & change

– Service & price elements, discounts & margins for consistent pricing

– Offer and contract templates to automate document creation

– Service resources item and their use such as phone numbers, CPE’s, access lines, …

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb

Ser Mgmt CRMRes Mgmt

ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment

Offer Order &

ContractService

Fulfilment Service

Assurance Billing & Collection

„End-to-End“ Taifun Product Catalogue

workflow SLA TariffsdocumentsValid configurations

=> Product definition without redundancy. No need for costly interfaces.

Examples:


Business Requirements• Standardized product lines (vs. customer specific products)

• Short time to market for new or improved products

• Lower operational costs

• Improve quality

Solution• Build new products effectively out of modular base products

(e.g. a VLAN product is built on top of P2P-connectivity products)

• a product specification contains all the models & definitions necessary for offering, ordering, delivering and billing

• Highly automated, workflow driven End-to-End “Offer to Cash” process

Reusable Service Modulesfor flexible offerings

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment

=> Reusable service modules for speed & flexibility


The 360° customer view

Efficiently maintain the entire relationship with your customer:

• Sub customers (over n-hierarchies)

• Offers

• Orders & Contracts

• Services– Addresses & Contacts

– Bill account

– Discounts

– Associated Inventory

• Journal

• Invoices

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment

Explore

=> One user interface for your CRM


Service Fulfilment: From process definition…


… to automated provisioning workflow

=> what, when, by whom; ok? problems?


Controlling the workflow

Start time

• Task addressed to role ‘VDA‘

• Task handled by user ‘kurmch‘ End time

• Task states:– planned– ready / executing– finished

Task description


Taifun Billing

• Key features– Implementing billing stream from network element to printed bill– billing of any billable event from any voice, data and other services

• Delivering the key billing scenarios– Direct billing of customers– Wholesale billing of partners (e.g. other CNOs or switchless resellers)– End customer billing per partner network for white label products – Intercarrier billing

PrintfilesRated billing events

Aggregating& Rating

Aggregating& Rating

Bill consolidation Discounting

Bill consolidation Discounting

Bill items Bill archive

Bill formattingBill formatting

Accounting Billing Invoice Generation

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment

raw events

=> Taifun support all Telecom billing scenarios


Billing scenarios

Retail Billing

ResellerBilling

Interconn.Billing

Control invoice

Reseller invoice

Resellere.g. CNO without own switch but with own access network)

Interconn.Billing

Retail Billing

Carrier invoice

Carrier invoice CDRCDR CDR

Retail invoice

Customer

CDR

Partner CarrierCarrier with own switch but without end customer

Interconnection CarrierOwn Network

Reseller invoice

Retail invoice

Customer

CDR

Control invoice

CDR

CDRReseller Billing

Billing Typeby Taifun

Reconciliation

Reconciliation

Legend:

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment


Taifun for Cable Network Operators

• Triple-Play Service Fulfilment:– Data, Voice, Cable-TV, D-TV

• Service & Technical Provisioning– Voice switch or partner carrier– eMTA, CM, D-TV (Nagra & Conax: 2007)– Mailserver

• Inventory & Stock Management– Modems, routers, settop-boxes

• Rating & Billing– All service types


Inventory Management


„Triple Play“ solution overview

Collection (SAP, Navision, ..) Collection (SAP, Navision, ..) Taifun Service & Inventory Mgmt Taifun Service & Inventory Mgmt

Incognito BCCTechnical Provisioning

Incognito BCCTechnical Provisioning

D-TV Nagra/Conax

CAS

D-TV Nagra/Conax

CAS

Taifun Service Provisioning Taifun Service Provisioning

Taifun Rating/Billing Taifun Rating/Billing

Taifun Mediation Taifun Mediation

other components

Taifun/BCC

Service usage

DATA(Euro)

DOCSIS

IP Voice(Euro) Packet Cable

OtherIP

Device

ISPMail

Hosting

DTVD-TVDVB STB

VoiceSwitch

orprovide

r

Taifun Web Portal (Self Care & EBP) Taifun Web Portal (Self Care & EBP) Taifun Bill Formatting Taifun Bill Formatting Printshop (PDF, PS3)Printshop (PDF, PS3)

CustomerCustomer


TelcoBill

• online bill presentment• real-time bill & call detail

analysis• cost control on cost center

level• customer inventory

management

• online demohttp://www.telcobill.ch

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment


Web PortalSerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment


• End-to-End service fulfilment automation: central, modular product catalogue combined with strong business process engine to implement efficient service delivery.

• Comprehensive billing capabilities: supporting a variety of billing scenarios to support flexible business models.

• Straightforward to integrate: fully based on industry standards such as Java (J2SE, J2EE) and equipped with extensible, open APIs such as SOAP.

Taifun – The summary

• End-to-End service fulfilment automation: central, modular product catalogue combined with strong business process engine to implement efficient service delivery.

• Comprehensive billing capabilities: supporting a variety of billing scenarios to support flexible business models.

• Straightforward to integrate: fully based on industry standards such as Java (J2SE, J2EE) and equipped with extensible, open APIs such as SOAP.

© 2006 Ergon Informatik AG 23

http://www.ergon.ch

[email protected]


Taifun Architecture

• Standards– J2EE, XML, SOAP

• Reusability– Modular, open APIs

– customizable whilemaintaining release ability

• Scalable– J2EE, Oracle

• Future Proof– SOA, Model Driven

Oracle

CustomizationsCustomizations

ServiceService BillingBilling

ProcessesProcesses ReportsReports

ProductProduct GUIGUI

Service APIsSOAP/WSDL

Service APIsSOAP/WSDL

InterfacesXML, CDR, UDR, ..

InterfacesXML, CDR, UDR, ..

OracleJ2EE Application ServerWebsphere, JBoss, ..

Web ClientWeb ClientJava ClientJava Client

Taifun

Scaling


ONP and INA interface module

• The INET/ONP Module handles the number porting workflow with the BAKOM INET server:– upload/download of work orders to/from INET server

– fully automated incoming porting including all timing issues from init till handover

– handling of represents in case of failures

– inform about outgoing portings (workflow not yet fully automated)

– inform about confirmed time of porting

– inform about rejects (incl. reason)

• Functionalities of the INET/INA provisioning interface:– Put BN into operation (export tariff model and business number).

– Download and install tariff definitions of foreign business number operators.

– Export rated CDRs for foreign network operators to INA Server.


Technical Provisioning with Incognito Broadband Command Center

• Modem• MTA• Other IP-devices

Taifun Service Provisioning

SerSer

BillBill

ProvProv

TBTB

WebWeb


ProdProd

MedMed

CustCustResResN C

Billing

Fulfillment



Customer Management


Historized Data

© 2006 Ergon Informatik AG 1 Ergon’s comprehensive service fulfilment & billing solution for telecom service providers & CNOs SwiNOG 13, Bern November.

Documents

taifun webportal

service billing

taifun crm billing suite

service management

taifun workflow engine

business service divisions

service provisioning

billing scenarios