CGI and real-time event rating prepares Amena for next-generation services

« In addition to immediate cost savings, Amena gained a sustainable competitive advantage by rapidly delivering customized services in response to market demands. »

The Client
As mobile data services (MDS) are becoming broadly similar among all operators in Spain, speed to market isn't the only factor affecting an operator's competitive advantage. Increasingly, the packaging, pricing, and discounting of services are becoming more critical, and Amena-with more than 8.5 million customers-faced the risk of losing its competitive advantage if it could not be one of the first to market these next-generation services.

The Challenge
Amena's highly customized billing platform was not designed to provide rating and billing for MDS, and the complexity and costs associated with modifying it to properly support MDS presented significant risks and infrastructure challenges. Furthermore, due to the customization of its multiple IT systems, Amena had mounting costs, high license fees, and an overdependency on a single billing provider-leaving alternatives to provide new services prohibitively expensive.

Amena turned to CGI's proven technology, industry expertise, and global experience. CGI had previously helped engineer the operator's launch in less than six months and together developed INTransit-a next-generation mobile roaming solution.

The Strategy
To help Amena enter the MDS market quickly with minimized risks and costs, CGI recommended developing an advanced rating solution-a single system to support event rating for all mobile data traffic, from GPRS (general packet radio service) through UMTS (universal mobile telecommunication system) services. This robust rating platform would well position Amena for its future plans to exploit opportunities with next-generation services.

The Advanced Rating solution is an event charger that interfaces with Amena's postpaid and prepaid billing systems. The solution receives traffic from the mediation device (network) and is responsible for guiding (identifying the products) and rating (calculating the effective value of the products used for a client at a specific point in time) functionalities. The solution includes an application that sits between mediation and billing and strips out all the guiding and rating functionalities from different billers. Releasing these functionalities to implement new services and tariffs, this solution provides rated and guided traffic to billers in what is virtually real time. For prepaid services there is an on-line charging interface between the advanced rating solution and Amena's prepaid billing system.

The Advanced Rating solution now manages all SMS (short messages), MMS (multimedia messages), GPRS, Video Streaming and Sim Browsing traffic in Amena.

The Results
In addition to immediate cost savings, Amena gained a sustainable competitive advantage by rapidly delivering customized services in response to market demands. Amena now has a platform that can be leveraged for additional lines of business in the Auna Group-from fixed to ISP. Furthermore, by minimizing changes to the main billing platform, Amena reduced the risks of system disruption and error rates. Additional benefits include:

Increased revenues - Amena can now leverage, support, and efficiently bill/charge for all next-generation MDS provided by GPRS and UMTS technologies.

Reduced churn - By providing MDS with flexible charging options for the end customer, Amena gains customer loyalty.

Shorter time to market - Because the definition and configuration of services are done in a single system, new MDS can be introduced in a few days.

Low initial costs - The Advanced Rating solution represents an alternative to expensive billing migration projects at savings of 60%-75%.

Reduced operational costs - The Advanced Rating solution streamlines operations and minimizes the dependency on other parties required for Amena's systems management and support.

Future scalability - Based on the proven technology of INTransit, the Advanced Rating solution can handle the increasing volumes and demands of Amena's next generation of networks.

Competitive advantage - Amena increased its competitive advantage with a first-to-market proposition and is now able to flexibly package, price, and discount next-generation MDS.