NBN

The National Broadband Network requires a solution to enable their wholesale customers to provision, activate, bill and audit services delivered over the NBN framework. The solution to be implemented must be robust, Scalable and flexible. Utilibill have demonstrated the ability to deliver each of the requirements and provide a drop in solution to provide wholesale services to Resellers and service providers procuring the services delivered over the NBN. Utilibill have the capability to provide a solution that addresses the current requirements along with optional capabilities to deliver other integrated and non related services in the future. The broad umbrella might include; Electricity, Gas, Water, Rates, Security monitoring, Sewage, E-health, Remote backup and so on. Features of Utilibill documented herein are indicative of services and feature sets that are in operation in Australian Telecommunications companies today. Utilibill is an end to end activation, provisioning, management and billing platform created specifically for Aggregators and service enablers, this includes but is certainly not limited to the National Broadband Network. The focus is our capability to deliver a proven, cost effective, purpose built solutions that are fast to market. The Tasmanian rollout represents a perfect opportunity to prove Utilibill and its capabilities in provisioning and billing of services under the new National Broadband network. The Utilibill solution enables service providers to be activated same day, with minimal to no input required from Utilibill or its staff.

NBN operators are provided the following capabilities on the NBN platform

• Fully manage their customer bases
  • Provision new services
  • Suspend services / Cancel services
  • Bill for services
  • Up-sell and down-sell)
  • Display usage for current month Vs included allowance
  • Provide monthly CDR’s and recurring charges
  • Plan management
  • Service Qualification checking tools
  • FTP / B2B / XML / API
  • Complex reporting
• Mulitple Brands under one management framework
• Customer portals
• Technicians portals

Existing Utilibill Modules

Utilibill provides a number of fully integrated modules. When combined the modules create the make up required for a drop in wholesale channel or VFNE / VFNO Facilitation. We continue to add new modules to the platform constantly extending on the base foundation of the platform.

Reporting

Utilibill comes with many standard reports. These reports are generated using web based Jasper reports. These reports are added as required. There are around 90 generic reports included in the following default categories;

All management reports required to run the day to day business are also included.

Dashboard

The Dashboard allows for selective reporting enabling staff to perform their core tasks in a proactive manner. Each level of the organisation chart requires different reporting. The Dashboard tool allows for auto alerts to be sent to selected drop boxes in the organisation, alternatively alerts can be delivered to mobile phones,SMS as well as to wholesale customers to inform of items like;

• High spend alert notification
• Customers Approaching cap
• Reminder treatment
• Cross Selling

Management may display collections reports, growth in Revenue, Margin dollars, High spend alerts, ARPU, Churn, customers added and so on. This appears on their dashboard giving them the view over the business they need at a managerial level. Specific reports can be added as required.

Customer service operators may populate their dashboard with items like failed port churns, new service activations, Pending connections, high spend reports, Intervention required reporting. Each customer service representative can style to their dashboard to their own personal preferences. Design view enables you and your service providers to generate their own reports by pulling different fields from the predefined design views. These views can be displayed as Pie charts, Graphs, Trend charts as specified by the users preference. Each report can be saved and presented on the dashboard.

Inventory

Utilibill provides an inventory system which will allow for the management of inventory assets. The module includes the following features;

• Procurement and purchase order raising
• Automated order placement to providers by email, xml or fax depending on supplier capability / preference.
• Automated product tracking – con note management
• Returns management
• Ad hoc ordering
• Stock draw down with automated top up
• Automated insertion of charges to SP and end customer billing for both upfront and 12 and 24 month contract items.
• Multi vendor / Multi product type / Multi Price approach
• Inventory item details linked to customer and their associated service

Stock typically is defined as n ONU, PBX, VoIP Adapter, dongle or xDSL modem etc. The configuration is completely customisable and as each inventory type has its own unique required fields multiple datasheets are made available at product type level. This ensures all device information is made available in one location. Integration of inventory alleviates double entry and the need for multiple systems.

Ticketing system

Utilibill offers a ticketing system providing departmental problem management. Importantly it also has the ability to complete multi level activities enabling end users, service providers and the aggregator a communications path for workflow management and problem reporting. Workflow for ticketing removes ticket duplication for escalations.

Rate Plans and the Rate plan Tool

Utilibill has a built in Rate plan tool which allows NBN Staff to create plans.The tool enables the service providers the same ability where required.

Bill Run / Billing & Rating

Utilibill offers one of the most comprehensive billing and rating engines available.

Bill run

Bill run functionality allows you to complete billing for each of your Service Providers in one sweep. Furthermore the multi level billing enables you to not only complete your own billing but also your service providers retail billing in one run should you desire. This creates an opportunity to measure margin analysis on your customer bases which assist in understanding their profitability. More importantly the module enables you to complete your customer invoicing seamlessly, removing timing differences that most wholesalers who offer billing typically face. Our platform runs reversible bills runs rather than rollbacks which ensures operator changes are not lost under circumstances where bill runs need to be re-executed.

Billing and Rating

The Utilibill rating engine allows for the most complex methods including;

• Caps
• Fleet
• Inter fleet
• Loyalty discounts
• Included spend
• Peak off peak etc.
• Bundles
• Priority based

All rates are configurable at the web portal level removing any dependency on Utilibill making you the master of your domain. Utilibill provide you with the ability to manage your own rates plans as well as providing service provider the ability to manage their downstream plans. This is facilitated with our rate plan Wizard and associated rate plan tools. Say good bye to Excel spreadsheets and manually entering plans and rate updates for ever!

Payment Systems

Utilibill offer direct integration with most major banks and gateway providers, this is available to wholeesale customers for payments, If the NBN player wishes to collect payments these services will extend to BPAY, Online DD, scheduled direct Debit, Australia post and Web Pay. This gives Wholesalers the full suite of payment methods to keep accounts in terms.

Contact Log

Any activity regarding the provisioning, modification and cancellation of services will be recorded in the contact log along with a user identification and time / date stamp. All changes to any accounts are audited for security purposes.

Calendered reminders / Action items

Utilibill has a calendar function on each user dashboard. This enables you to have reminders pop up on the front screen. This is a key feature of Utilibill which enables customer service representatives ensure that they provide proactive service as well as ensuring the ability to follow through on preset expectations. This is also helpful when roles are split or shared with several users over alternating shifts.

Role based Access

Utilibill have 5 levels of access to the system;

• Admin: Access all areas
• Wholesale support group: Access all areas with exception of accounting information
• Finance: Access all financial information
• Service Provider view: access to SP’s customers and all related information
• End Customer: web access to their account online (details to be confirmed).

Others can be defined as required. The purpose is to lock down and limit access to areas only necessary to those with roles requiring privilege.

Status change Notifications

Utilibill monitor provisions and changes utilising polling techniques. These items can be displayed on the home page or in dashboard views. Some examples may be;

1. Activation of new accounts
2. Activation of new Fibre head ends
3. Activation of new ONU units
4. Outages
5. Changes

Web Portal

The NBN is empowered to offer every SP customer will have the ability to login to their account on line and carry out the following tasks.

1. View account details
2. View all of their customers
3. Report on usage at customer and group level
4. View usage
5. View billing
6. View itemisation
7. Download PDFs
8. data mining for marketing and analysis The Utilibill customer portal is completely customisable. Driven by Cascading style sheets, you may alter the customer experience to suit your corporate colour scheme. This can be executed using our tool or by entering in the RGB colour for each relevant item in the Cascading Style Sheet.

Infrastructure

Utilibill adopts leading edge technologies to deliver the highest quality infrastructure for your business needs. With our partner DELL we have delivered a robust reliable solution which integrates the DELL Poweredge M1000 and 600 Blades with fibre attached SANs’ utilising the faster Fibre disks available. The near line backups are stored on robotic tape libraries. Aged backups are stored offsite in a fireproof safe. Utilibill is a VMWARE partner. This partnership ensures we have the highest level of expertise available for supporting the VMWARE infrastructure, in particular ESXi which is purpose built for tight integration with the M1000 technologies. The VMWARE technology allows our server instances to roll over from one blade to another seamlessly in the event of a blade failure. Virtual Center manager makes the transition within seconds. Each Utilibill instance requires not less than 4 Server clusters including MS SQL2003 database server cluster, Web Server cluster, Billing Server Cluster and Schedule Server Cluster.

Inclusions in the Utilibill platform

The following elements will be included in the base offering:

• Billing
• Provisioning
• Payments
• Reporting
• Contact & Audit
• Calendered reminders / Action items
• Role based Access module
• Status change notifications
• Web Portal