Infranet
Portal's Infranet® software is a real-time, flexible solution for the management of Internet and emerging next-generation communication services. Infranet supports the creation and management of customer
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As communications and content service providers scramble
to offer the broader range of services needed to compete in today’s business
environment, they are finding that they need an OSS/BSS solution flexible enough
to keep pace with their changing markets. Portal Software’s Infranet®, a
convergent billing and customer management platform for communications and
content providers, enables service providers to deliver voice, data, content,
and commerce services over wireline, wireless, cable, and satellite networks. A
modular, platform-based solution that combines the best of custom and “off-the-shelf”
approaches, Infranet allows service providers to rapidly develop, price, and
provision services while strategically managing customer usage and billing.
Infranet offers a scalable, flexible, and highly available
architecture, as well as open APIs and integration with industry-leading
applications. For any provider in any market, Infranet is a powerful, convergent
platform that delivers unmatched support for multiple services, revenue
management, business agility, and customer satisfaction.
Enabling Multiple Services and Business Models
In the new generation of convergent networks, frequent
technological advances create new business opportunities and a need to launch
new services. Unexpected spikes in customer usage or sudden competitive pressure
can push a service provider’s business system to its limit. Infranet enables
service providers to prepare for and respond to rapid change with a host of
innovative capabilities for voice, data, and content services, including:
Value-based pricing support. Maximizes revenue by
billing based on value and quality of content, minutes, bytes, or quality of
service.
Discounting features. Supports volume, tiered,
promotional, and time-of-day or day-of-week discounts.
Powerful pricing tool. Quickly creates and
changes prices for products and services without programming.
Branding support. Manages “virtual businesses,”
enabling companies to segment an Infranet database to associate accounts,
products, and financial information with each “virtual business.”
Database reporting. Delivers the strategic
insight needed to change business models and price plans on the fly.
Delivering Powerful and Precise Revenue Management
To ensure that providers see the full benefit of revenues
from new and existing customers and services, they must have a customer
management and billing solution that protects profits by reducing revenue
leakage. Service providers must frequently update pricing models and financial
systems, and accept new Web-enabled forms of payment. They need an OSS/BSS
solution that supports these new practices, prevents revenue leakage, and
maximizes revenue assurance. Features of Infranet that enable it to perform
these functions include the following:
Real-time authentication. Enables service
providers to check for duplicate logins and passwords to prevent fraud.
Real-time authorization. Ensures that account
holders have credit available, validating both monetary and nonmonetary
resources.
Sophisticated rating engine. Supports both
transactional real-time and high-performance batch processing on a single
platform. Immediately debits multiple revenue and nonmonetary resources,
such as bandwidth and quality of service.
Re-rating. Enables service providers to make
rating changes invisible to account holders if prices of services need to be
changed after an activity has already been rated. Companies may need to
perform re-rating as a result of regulatory requirements, competitive
pressures, or an error in initial rate definition.
Built-in taxation interfaces. Quickly integrates
with leading taxation packages in various markets and geographies.
Support for multiple currencies. Allows each
account holder to receive invoices and to pay based on a preferred currency.
Full integration with financial systems.
Instantly updates general ledger and enables service providers to track
earned and unearned revenue at any time.
Powerful, user-friendly payment tool. Payments
are immediately reflected in the account and are visible to the account
holder and customer service representatives.
Attracting and Retaining Valuable Customers
Businesses and consumers are seeking options for customer
care that can be delivered through multiple channels. Infranet offers web-based
customer self-care to supplement the web-based tools used by customer service
representatives (CSRs). Infranet allows service providers to meet and exceed the
highest customer expectations, creating the kind of satisfaction that translates
into profitable and sustainable customer relationships.
Self-registration and monitoring. Enables
customers to sign up for services around the clock without call center
assistance, then view and change account information online.
Easy-to-use customer care tool. CSRs can quickly
respond to accountholder inquiries with the intuitive, web-based Customer
Center tool. Companies can tailor this tool to reflect their unique business
practices, including changing terminology, modifying screens, hiding unused
features, or adding additional screens.
Account hierarchies. Allows service providers to
manage complex account structures with unlimited hierarchy levels and
members, a necessity for large corporate accounts.
Sponsorship. Supports innovative pricing
solutions by splitting charges between accounts.
Royalty and remittance tracking. Helps providers
better manage their cash flow by determining the amount and timing of
payments to partners.
Billing flexibility. Enables a wide variety of
billing scenarios, including immediate billing or billing before or after
service provisioning.
Support for a range of payment methods. Supports
a variety of payment methods, including check, cash, credit card, prepaid,
and online bill-pay. Out-of-the-box integrations support credit card
processing, debit card processing, and direct debit in a variety of
geographies.
Customer activity tracking. Creates an accurate
audit trail of any changes made to an account, including the time the change
was made and the person who made the change.
Real-time usage analysis. Allows service
providers to make finely tailored offers to customers—while they’re
online.
A Powerful, Flexible Platform
In the rapidly evolving marketplace for communications and
content services, providers must be able to quickly deploy and support new
services and business models. Infranet offers a single business platform with
proven support for more than 50 types of services, including voice, data, and
content over wireless and wireline networks. A flexible solution, Infranet
easily adapts to serve as the platform for market-specific solutions, including
Infranet Wireless and Infranet Cable & Satellite.
Infranet offers all the advantages of a product-based
solution; with each new release, Portal provides a smooth upgrade path, enabling
customers to keep pace with changing technology and market conditions. As a
product-based solution, Infranet offers total cost of ownership (TCO)
advantages, so service providers avoid the expensive cycle of custom
implementations, support, and enhancements. As a result, Infranet delivers
optimal returns to service providers on their infrastructure investments and
minimizes ongoing costs for maintenance and customization.
The Infranet platform offers the following technology
advantages:
N-tier architecture. Enables service providers to
add or modify functionality without affecting performance.
Open APIs. Easily integrates with enterprise
software, including legacy and even competitive systems, ensuring a low-risk
implementation through a phased approach, while preserving previous
infrastructure investments. Also enables third-party software designers to
extend the Infranet platform to meet unique business requirements.
Massive scalability. Handles a virtually
unlimited number of customers with multiple databases and no interruption in
service.
Distributed Non-Stop Architecture (DNA). Allows
service providers to maintain continuous operation, even when the main
database is offline.
Data purging. Enables service providers to
maximize system performance by eliminating nonessential data from production
databases.
Support for multiple platforms. Runs on Windows
98, Windows 2000, and Windows NT clients, and on AIX, HP-UX, Solaris,
Windows NT and Window 2000 servers.
Full internationalization support. Gives
enterprises the agility to deliver localized products to a diverse audience.
Infranet is translated into 10 languages and supports a variety of languages
(character sets) within a single database.
A Platform that Supports Growth
Infranet offers communications and content service providers
the end-to-end solution for the convergent services they’ll need to remain
competitive. Unlike legacy systems and customized solutions, Infranet enables
providers to quickly deploy multiple services supported by innovative business
models. The Infranet platform is enhanced by the technological and business
resources of Portal’s extensive partner value chain. It delivers a higher ROI
with a lower total cost of ownership, increasing its overall value to a
strategic communications or content service provider. In the growing, dynamic
market for communications and content services, Infranet is the customer
management and billing platform that best equips service providers to succeed
now and in the future.
About Portal
Portal Software develops product-based customer management
and billing solutions for communications and content service providers. Portal’s
fully convergent platform enables service providers to deliver voice, data,
video, and content services using any combination of networks, payment models,
pricing plans, and value chains. Portal’s innovative approach provides our customers
maximum value and lowest total cost of ownership. Customers include Vodafone,
AOL Time Warner, Deutsche Telekom, WorldCom, NTT, China Telecom, Reuters,
Telstra, China Mobile, Telenor Mobil, Vivendi, and France Telecom.