MiBAS, Motorola integrated Billing and Administration System, was developed to support mobile cellular network operators in managing their business, providing provisioning and billing functionality.
MiBAS rich-featured, proven offerings provide a reliable billing and provisioning solution for today’s iDEN, GSM, WiMAX, TETRA and ASTRO networks as well as Next Generation Networks.
Network and digital communications operators seeking best-in-class, convergent billing, multi-service provisioning, billing and related products, will find that MiBAS completely fulfills their needs. MiBAS speeds up service delivery, dramatically improves accuracy of service fulfillment, and enables diversified rating and convergent billing.
The product offerings encompass core billing and provisioning modules as well as additional modules.
MiBAS provides provisioning and billing functions that allow activation of handsets, accumulation of their network usage and later, on a periodic basis, bill them for the various usages. Characterized by high quality and breadth of features and functionality, MiBAS interfaces to third-party, real-time pre-paid platforms. The interfaces provide the ability to easily provisioning and balance deduction for usages that are not supported by the pre-paid platform (Such as roaming charges).
MiBAS modules are fully integrated and the integration between the MiBAS modules and external Modules provide the end user the feel of one integrated system.
The feature-rich MiBAS solution supports a host of major functions including:
Customer care
Web Access for self care
Provisioning & Activation of Subscriber Units
Resource Management
Product Catalog
Rating
Roaming
Inter-Carrier Settlements
Bill Calculation
Billing Control
Billing Simulation
Billing Mediation
Invoicing
Prepaid
MAS – MiBAS Application Server (APIs)
Interface Tables
Commissions
Customer Care
Designed for ensuring simple and efficient contact between the customer service representative contact and the customer, controlled by on-line validation of operator-specific business rules. Enables simple entry of services for subscribers, supported by templates and massive operations. Billing-related terms such as billing attributes, adjustments, promotions. Administration of geographic addresses for customers and accounts interfacing with local address validation packages. Administration notes and alerts for customers and accounts. Additional attributes: defined by the operator for non-billing purposes and assigned to customers and accounts. For example, size of company or subscriber’s birth date.
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Using the self care module dealers and customer administrators can remotely activate and provision services view charges and more without involving the operator. Designed to provide customer self-care capabilities via remote browser-based access to MiBAS over the Internet or Intranet The self care module allows smooth and lean customer-care operations while increasing administrative control and improving customer satisfaction. Via an easy-to-use, Web-based user interface, an administrator can access customer lists, activate subscribers, configure handsets, replace subscriber units, and make billing inquiries. The Web-based customer care module allows for smooth and lean customer-care operations while increasing administrative control and improving customer satisfaction.
Designed to accelerate telecommunications service fulfillment, the provisioning and activation module automates complex tasks required to accurately and efficiently create, activate and maintain subscriber units and services such as telephony, dispatch and packet data across various platforms and technologies. It allows for rapid registration, configuration, and maintenance of subscribers, and provides customers with self-care capabilities to instantly configure and activate units to support a wide range of services.
Key functionality includes:
Add new subscribers
Activate subscribers
Suspend subscribers
Resume subscribers
Replace handsets
Assign services
Assign talk groups (Dispatch Service)
Manage telephony numbers
Manage SIM cards
The Resource Management function manages various resources such as phone numbers IP addresses subscriber ID’s, IMSI and PTT ID’s. The resource management module also maps resources to Network Elements and maps resource pools including resource reservation per customer and “cooling-off” days. Automatic and manual allocation of resources to a subscriber, based on subscriber services is also provided
Designed to define and support all types of marketing billing promotions, the Product Catalog module helps you build rate plans for all types of services – Telephony, Dispatch, Packet Data, and SMS in accordance with global (system) and specific (customer/subscriber) rating parameters, as well as billing terms and criteria arising from cost sharing contracts and other subscription agreements.
This module supports multiple rate plans for all supported services while enabling rating on the basis of periodic fixed charges, usage, discount plans, and other rules.
Charges that may be applied include:
Recurrent or one-time fixed charges
Optional fixed charges
Usage of telephony air-time (incoming and outgoing mobile to mobile calls)
Usage of dispatch air-time (various call types)
Packet Data usage charges (volume of data, type of application)
SMS: Special rates for message terminator and message originator including support of vertical applications – SMS brokers
Rich pre- and post-paid services (special prepaid rating mechanism for Dispatch and Packet Data services that debits account balance)
Geography-based rating
Time based rating according to day of the week, time of day, and time-intervals
Subscription contract and early termination fees
“Friends and Family” packages
Usage- and quantity-based discounts
Service adjustments (independent means to credit and debit accounts, irrespective of the regular, automated charging mechanism)
Rounding of call duration
Stepped down or tiered rates
Free usage packages
Credit Scheme – for crediting customers based on consumption
Split charges between company and subscriber (“Split Bill” or “Cost Sharing”)
The MiBAS rating engine is designed to process raw CDRs from various network elements and rate them according to the services and billing attributes per account or customer as defined in the product catalog. MiBAS rates PTT (Dispatch) calls, Telephony (including VoIP), Packet Data and SMS messages as well of value added services.
Supports inter-carrier roaming settlement agreements and is responsible for exchanging and rating roaming through clearing houses.
The MiBAS Roaming module handles:
Receiving and rating TAP2 or TAP3 roaming files that are sent by the foreign visited PLMNs (Public Land Mobile Network) through the clearing house
Rates usage of Home PLMN by its guest roamers and creates TAP2 or TAP3 files to be sent to their respective foreign PLMNs through the clearing house
MiBAS supports settlements with other Telephony and SMS Service Providers, enabling multiple settlement periods and dedicated rate plans or agreements with each provider. Settlement calculations are provided for incoming and outgoing usage, via a set of inquiries/reports that are summarized per service provider, detailed up to the hour.
Calculates the fixed and usage charges based on predefined rate plans, customer/subscriber provisioned profile, and usage. The Bill Calculation feature supports multiple billing cycles to reduce and distribute workloads in departments dealing with finance, customer support and billing throughout the billing period. The accumulated usage data allows operators to create a rich assortment of customer reports. Data may be exported into spreadsheets to generate reports and graphs that facilitate the identification and analysis of usage patterns. Billing cycle processes provide the input for the invoicing module.
The MiBAS Billing Control module allows for the rapid detection of network and billing exceptions such as excessive charges, or unexpected volume changes in fixed charges, or missing CDRs for a specific hour in a day. This module is designed to enhance operator control over billable items, address problems of revenue leakage, and detect exceptional usage behaviors (for example significant changes in volumes of usage or average call duration). It is a powerful tool for the effective management of resources, finance and revenue assurance.
A unique and powerful marketing tool enables operators to best fit rate schemes to their customer’s profile. This feature allows the use of actual historical usage data or other baselines to simulate marketing “what-if” scenarios, calculating charges for other appropriate rate plans. Using multiple different rate schemes, based on customer categories, ensures optimized offerings to minimize churn and to predict the impact of price changes.
Billing Mediation – the MiBAS Collector (for Tetra/Dimetra-IP)
MiBAS Collector is an advanced mediation solution offered as an add-on module to TETRA (DIMETRA-IP) network operators. Designed as a PC-based application to be installed by Zone Controllers, the MiBAS Collector enables:
Collecting telephony, dispatch, packet data, and SMS events
Filtering billing events and breaking up the bytes to appropriate usable data
Formatting and creating CDRs (Call Detail Record) for further processing by MiBAS billing module
MiAnalyzer – MiBAS Traffic Analysis Module
MiAnalyzer, the MiBAS traffic analysis module is based on the basic MiBAS Collector, a MiBAS add-on module that is comprised of two modules – AMM (ATIA Mediation Module) and ACM (ATIA Consolidation Module). This module will be enhanced to capture all ATIA events for further statistics reports and analysis to meet the SRD requirements.
The MiBAS invoicing module (TPi) is a browser-based application designed to produce files to be sent to the customer’s Bill Fulfillment Vendor (BFV) by processing and formatting data from the MiBAS billing, Account Receivables and taxation modules. Based on user-defined parameters, the invoicing engine processes information for:
Printing customer invoices
Generating electronic bills that may be imported into other
Crediting and debiting general ledger accounts with the invoice amounts
The following features are supported:
Multiple invoicing cycles
Invoice Validation Engine - enables administrators to validate each billing transaction and define flexible rules for determining the validity of a billing transaction
Line type translator engine - allows users to associate each transaction in the billing system to the type of charge (line type) using a sophisticated mechanism that may be customized by the user
Journal voucher engine - allows users to create journal vouchers for each statement created by the system
Invoicing Wizard - enables users to determine how a billing transaction will be aggregated; users may define the aggregation level for customer statements and subscriber statements.
Statement engine - enables users to customize their statement to their needs
Marketing text engine - allows users to assign and insert marketing texts into statements based on user-defined criteria
Electronic billing - enables users to produce an e-bill file according to customer needs. TPi allows system administrators to dynamically design/change the e-bill file structure and assign each file format to a customer, using system criteria.
Invoicing Analysis Module - allows users to produce control statistics, and comprehensive reports based on current invoicing reports/historical invoicing
Pre-Paid
MiBAS proposes a solution for convergent billing of post-paid and pre-paid subscribers.
Pre-paid support is enabled in three modes:
MPPS – MiBAS Prepaid Solution – MiBAS internal CDR based pre-paid engine, enables the use of the MiBAS rich product catalog and billing features for pre-paid subscribers. The module supports all usage types – Telephony, Dispatch (POC), SMS and Data.
MiVALUE – MiBAS post-paid modules are integrated with an IN pre-paid module for real-time billing, offering a complete advanced IN solution for pre-paid subscribers.
MiBAS interfaces to third-party, real-time pre-paid platforms. The interfaces provide the ability to easily provisioning and balancing deduction for usage types that are not supported by the pre-paid platform. This is complemented by MiBAS CDR-based rating of pre-paid processes
MAS – MiBAS Application Server - API Layer
MAS enable accessing the MiBAS engine from external applications and streamlines user processes via a unified XML interface. The MiBAS API Layer improves operational efficiency, enhances customer service and dramatically reduces the customer learning curve.
MiBAS Interfaces Tables are the gateway to data stored in the MiBAS database. Through the Interface Tables, external applications – such as data warehouse applications – can process this data without the need to access MiBAS database directly
The commission module helps operators to optimize sales performance and achieve revenue and profit objectives. Achieving corporate goals through efficient, easy-to-use and technologically advanced Enterprise Incentive Management (EIM) solutions is enabled through this module