Customers

• At a glance
• Vignettes
  • SIP Trunking at BT
  • NGIN at Orange Poland
  • IP-Centrex at Portugal Telecom
  • Charging Innovation at Smart
  • Multi-Number at Softbank
  • NGIN at T-Mobile Czech
  • SDP at T-Mobile Slovakia
  • IP-PBX at Telefonica
  • Real-time Charging at Telkomsel
  • MMS-C at Vodafone Spain
  • NGIN at Vodafone Spain
  • Protocol Translation at Vodafone Italy
  • Service Broking at Vodafone Portugal
  • NGIN at Wind Hellas
  • Mobile PBX
  • Open IN SCP
  • Protocol Gateway
  • Number Translation
  • Real-time ToIP

In 2010, Smart Communications selected Nokia Siemens Networks’ (NSN) Charge@Once platform as its new charging platform. OpenCloud Rhino Telecom Application Server and SIS (Opencloud’s Telecom Service Broker) were included in the deal to provide additional service and charging agility and flexibility.

The inclusion of Rhino and SIS was recognition by Smart of an issue that was highlighted by research analyst Caroline Chappell in the Heavy Reading report “Rate Plan Innovation: Who’s in Charge of Charging”. Namely, no matter how comprehensive, capable and user-friendly the charging systems, operators often find they must configure charging trigger functions to support rate plan innovation. Essentially, the roadblock is moved along one junction: from the charging system into a mediation system or IN platform.

The first business use case for the new Rhino-based charging flexibility system was to provide a SMS signalling off-load system. This application categorises certain SMSs so that they are priced differently from standard SMS. The system receives the Mobile Originating (MO) Initial Detection Point (IDP), performs an analysis of the A and B numbers, and then does one of the following: adds a prefix to the SMS so the charging system can rate the SMS differently, releases the SMS or lets the SMS pass through without any changes. All the charging is provided by NSN Charge@Once Online Charging System. The combined Rhino TAS and SIS solution filters and categorises the SMSs.

The OpenCloud charging front-end system means that Smart Communications can readily implement rate plans quickly and cheaply to deliver their offers to market.