SETAR

SETAR, Servicio di Telecomunicacion di Aruba, the incumbent telecommunications operator in the Caribbean island, knew it needed to aggressively streamline its internal infrastructure from four disparate billing systems to a single platform to remain competitive.

The Need

Many operators in the telecommunications industry are aware of the competitive advantages a consolidated infrastructure can offer. These advantages come in the form of reduced costs from operating fewer systems and revenue opportunities created by being able to bundle services and charge for all on a single bill.

Yet, true convergent installations – in which a range of services such as mobile and fixed telephony, Internet and broadband are managed on the same billing and customer care platform — are still a rarity.

Operators frequently cite three key roadblocks to implementing convergent systems, including:

• Few systems are flexible enough, and have functional depth and breadth, to support all verticals
• If the cost of creating a convergent infrastructure is too high, it is difficult to justify the operational savings
• As the marketing advantages of a convergent offer often are difficult to quantify, it can be difficult to include these as increased revenue in a business case

Despite these challenges, SETAR, Servicio di Telecomunicacion di Aruba, the incumbent telecommunications operator on the Caribbean island, knew it needed to aggressively streamline its internal infrastructure from four disparate billing systems to a single platform to remain competitive.

It also wanted a partner that could not only provide the necessary software and services to support its needs, but could enable SETAR to more rapidly deliver cross-bundled promotions to its customers.

The Challenge

With the telecommunications industry deregulation occurring in SETAR’s market, the operator knew it needed to differentiate itself with innovative packages and customer service brought about by a convergent billing platform. It required:

• A platform that could be fully operational within 14 months
• Services consolidate onto a single bill, but also in four different languages: English, Spanish, Dutch and Papamiento (the local Aruban language)
  

The Solution

To achieve full convergence, SETAR selected Kenan® BP, Kenan® Data Mediation and complementary orders modules to support all of its services with one platform, including fixed-line local and international telephony, GSM and TDMA-based mobile services, as well as Internet access and IP services for business and residential customers.

Comverse’s Professional Services team led the complex integration project to replace SETAR’s existing billing, customer care, and mediation environments. Through this successful implementation, SETAR has been able to meet the challenges involved in deploying a successful convergent system, enabling them to benefit from greater internal cost savings as a result of streamlined operations.

The solution included:

• Kenan BP, a real-time billing platform that rates and bills for any transaction-based service in the mobile and wireline telephony, cable/satellite and IP markets. Kenan BP supports virtually all languages and currencies and is installed in more than 40 countries.
• Comverse’s multi-service order management modules, which enable customer service representatives and provisioning personnel to manage all aspects of customer order entry and fulfillment.
• Kenan® Application Integrator, a solution that provides for a rapid integration with external applications and systems with minimized systems integration costs.
• Kenan Data Mediation, the essential layer between a service provider’s network and the billing system that allows providers to capture the data required to bill for their services. This fully convergent, multi-vendor, multi-network mediation solution collects, mediates, and correlates vital customer usage information and distributes it to applications such as billing and fraud.

Comverse’s Professional Services Team based in the Caribbean and Latin American Region served as the systems integrator for the project, ensuring not only that all Comverse software was deployed and configured to SETAR’s requirements, but that it was also integrated into SETAR’s overall infrastructure. The project was delivered on time and on budget meeting SETAR’s requirements for functionality and scalability.

Results Speak for Themselves

Comverse’s Professional Services team consolidated four separate billing systems on to a single convergent platform. This consolidation not only has streamlined the operator’s internal costs, but also reduced the number of interfaces customer service representatives have to learn to support their diverse customer base.

The convergent billing platform also created a unified customer care and order management process for all their services, including GSM and TDMA mobile services, fixed-line telephony, Internet and broadband.

SETAR has improved customer service by drastically reducing the time it takes to fulfill an order. A customer can now call the call center and have all their new services activated and provisioned in one phone call.

The flow-through provisioning capabilities of Kenan Application Integrator have enabled SETAR to fully automate a process that was previously 100% manual — including automatic disconnection for delinquent accounts. This enables SETAR to reduce its risk associated with delinquent customers and ensure improved revenue flows.

The combination of Kenan BP and Kenan Data Mediation enabled SETAR to offer cross-product promotions and discounts across its customer base. To counter the increased competition in the Aruban market, SETAR has recently launched its own Friends and Family Plans for its customers and the concept of roll-over minutes, both for residential and business wireline customers, as well as for its mobile customer base.