"There is a need for real-time charging of data and voice services on a single bill."

Oracle has an outstanding track record for delivering business value in the communications industry. Oracle offers packaged software solutions that deliver end-to-end support for the key business processes for communications companies, from service creation, offer management, and order orchestration, through provisioning and service delivery, to billing, revenue assurance, and reporting. Oracle offers the widest choice of enterprise and carrier-grade software applications, middleware, database technology, and decision-support tools for the communications industry, with the combined strengths of PeopleSoft, Siebel, Portal Software, MetaSolv, TimesTen, and more. With Oracle's unique portfolio of solutions for the communications industry, service providers can rapidly create, market, sell, fulfil, deliver, and bill for next-generation services and content, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, reduce operating costs in the business and the network, and improve management reporting and control

On total installation base of OSS/BSS solutions in India

Over 95 percent of telecom companies in the country use Oracle's BSS/OSS software in their IT infrastructure.

On growth drivers and prospects

The telecom BSS/OSS is already witnessing a high rate of growth in India. Growth in mobility, broadband, and prepaid is accompanied by the evolving rich content services and applications. Convergence is enabling greater uptake of technologies - WIMAX to deliver services over larger bandwidths, IPTV to provide quad play services and launch of DTH services for retail consumers. While existing players are competing to retain the wallet share of their customers and maximize ARPU, new entrants are using technology for faster rollout of their services. Technology therefore has become a strategic business enabler for most Indian telecom companies

On new and emerging technological platforms

The telecom industry in India is going through a rapid growth phase. The subscriber base has already crossed 261 million in July 2008. The growth in the Indian telecom space is leading to high level of penetration and adoption across mobile, pay TV and broadband technologies. The other key trends taking place are the changes in the value added services space. Unified Access License for new players, the imminent introduction of Mobile Number Portability and the entry of Mobile Virtual Network Operators are all indication of the growing importance of operation and billing management systems and infrastructure (BSS/OSS).

On challenges and opportunities

Most telecom service providers have traditional architectures that usually consist of different sets of OSS and BSS systems each designed to support a particular type of service - be it mobile, fixed line, etc. In most cases, these systems have become complex network of applications that comprise of several processes and integration points making them inflexible to cater to new business requirements such as a single view of the customer, single point of contact for improved customer service, single bill for the customer, launch compelling services and offerings, business agility, launch new services etc.

To survive in an intensely fierce and uncertain business environment, it is but obvious that service providers would need to evolve to new OSS/BSS architectures that comprise of horizontal applications (designed to address any services), that are standards based, open and modular providing flexibility to evolve as per changing business requirements making the businesses competitive and nimble and drive business from a customer centric perspective rather than service centric.

The challenge though lies in executing an approach to evolve to new OSS/BSS architectures to that delivers business value early while mitigating risks, costs and complexity.

On complexities

With the advent of new services, some of the challenges service providers would face include:

• How to decrease their time to market

• How to be agile enough to compete effectively thus decreasing losses in revenue and market share

• Putting in place solutions that can support both mature and new services across the entire OSS/BSS domain

• Putting in place scalable solutions to manage explosive growth of subscribers and their transactions

• Ability to manage services that have shorter lifecycle

• Integrated and smart billing across various services

On key factors for success of OSS/BSS vendors

The key drivers for successful OSS/ BSS vendor are:

• It should be a unified OSS/ BSS/ERP -convergent solution to support any business model for all services over any network.

• It should be highly configurable and a packaged software.

• The architecture should be a modern, open APIs, and built on emerging software engineering principles and standards.

• It should be able to time-to-market with new services in matter of days and hours.

• It should be able to lower predictable CAPEX & OPEX.

• The R&D strategy should be product based with proven roadmap.

• It should be next generation networks & services ready with end-to-end support for real-time and on-demand IP based services.

On consolidation of legacy systems

Communications as an industry has reached an unprecented inflection point ushered in a space comprising of critical mass of enabling technologies now available to provide rich multimedia services, changing consumer expectations, intense competition, changing business models, significant de-regulation, entry of lean players etc, all of which are contributing as a catalyst and driving the pace of change leading to another evolution within the industry.

Considering the evolutionary nature of the industry today coupled with the relevance of IT centricity, service providers are assessing ways to transform themselves so that they can address all pertinent challenges and are thus looking at consolidation of systems. They are now increasingly looking at integrated packaged solutions that are horizontal in nature rather than silos, solutions that are open, modular in nature providing rich capabilities off the shelf for any service allowing them to compete effectively and lastly streamlining key mission critical business processes that span across key systems making them increasingly agile in a continual changing environment so that they are at the forefront of customer and competitive strategy while leveraging increased value from information technology.

On impact of OSS/BSS on QoS

QoS, a critical OSS component remains a challenge for most service providers and an integral part of network operations. Performance management solutions provide ability to monitor QoS by identifying bottlenecks/outages; provide views around service availability and insights into real time QoS being experienced by customers. We believe the real impact of QoS can be seen once it becomes a parameter to provide differentiated charging to customers.

On important role in helping operators to retain their customers

Service providers are transforming themselves to become multi-services providers including data and content along with voice. Hence, there is a need for real-time charging of data and voice services on a single bill. There is a big market for convergent billing solutions to overcome the challenge.

Determining what customers really want is only half the battle to winning their business. The price must be right. All revenues generated from services must be captured, billed and collected in a timely manner. Accurate billing and effective bill presentment are critical to safeguarding revenues, as well as promoting customer satisfaction. Very often, service providers use separate, non-integrated systems that are each dedicated to a specific network or service line, making it virtually impossible to create offers with price tags that appeal to the market and meet the organization's target margins.

Billing and revenue management solutions should provide accurate, real-time capture and application of revenues to customer and partner accounts as services are consumed on the network. This will enable service providers to have an up-to-date view of revenues, receivables, insights into customer profitability, service profitability and overall health of the business.

Oracle's portal billing and revenue management solutions offer the only billing and revenue management solution with a modern, object-oriented architecture that can bill and manage all communications services including wireline, wireless, broadband, cable, voice over IP, IPTV, music, and video. As communications, publishing, media, and entertainment services converge, Oracle can support companies with a proven offering for billing, customer interaction, and management of digital services and content.

On basic requirements

Some of the key requirements looked for in a billing and customer care system are -

• Significantly faster time to market

• Offer customers flexible payment options

• Unlimited promotions and marketing capabilities

• Minimize fraud, revenue leakage and bad debt through real-time service authorizations

• Accurately audit and settle with partners

• Accurate views of revenue for management reporting and decision making

On your offerings for the Indian telecom service providers

Oracle has recently signed on customers in India like Bharti Airtel, Sun Direct, BSNL and IDEA Cellular, TataSky, to name a few. Oracle Communications is increasing its presence in the high growth areas including DTH, WIMAX and single billing. There are plans for expansion of Oracle BSS Development Centre in Bangalore and opening of Oracle OSS Development Center in Hyderabad. With global communication companies establishing operations in India, Oracle is focusing on managing the systems and infrastructure (BSS/OSS) and partnering with the emerging India-based SIs as communications experts, to meet the increased demand for high-end technology solutions.

Oracle is in a unique position to deliver significant value to the industry and our comprehensive solution suite includes:

• Oracle Siebel Customer Relationship Management

• Oracle Communications Billing & Revenue Management

• Oracle Communications Service Fulfillment Suite

• Oracle ERP

• Oracle Service Delivery Platform

• Oracle Carrier Grade Technology and Middleware Platforms

Global customers

America Movil, AT&T, Bellsouth, BT, China Mobile Communications, China Mobile Group Guangdong Co Ltd, China Telecom, Chongqing Telecom Company, Cingular, Comcast, Deutsche Telecom, EMOBILE, ftgroup, Gansu Telecom, Guizhou Telecom, KPN, KT, NTT, OTE, PCCW, Qwest, Shanxi Telecom, Sichuan Telecom Company, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Telstra, Verizon, Virgin Mobile (Shanghai) Ltd, Vodafone, Xinjiang Telecom and Yunnan Telecom.

Customers in India

Amar Ujala, Bharti Airtel, Hathway, Idea Cellular, MTNL, Tata Sky, Tata Teleservices Limited, Vodafone and VSNL.