Billing & Rating Management Feature

Officials with Asentinel recently reported that dozens of carriers, including industry giant AT&T (News - Alert), have sought out the company’s software to help to develop new electronic data interface (EDI) billing systems that will continue to provide data that is sufficient to audit back to the carrier’s contracted rates.

 “Since our inception, Asentinel has been working on our customer’s behalf to enhance their carrier’s billing capabilities,” said Jason Fisher, chief software architect for Asentinel, in a statement.  “The goal of our solution and the patents surrounding our technology has always been to capture the most granular billing detail and audit these charges back to the customer’s contractual rates. This has created an ongoing demand to make billing system enhancements as carriers deliver new products and services.”

Fisher said that the relationship with carriers has not been adversarial and, in fact, there has been a good response from carriers over the years to make these enhancements.

“It has never been the carrier’s desire to produce incorrect billing and they understand and see the value of our solution. This has been evidenced by the carrier’s approaching us for our electronic billing expertise regularly as they make changes to their billing systems,” he said.

Company officials said that carriers like AT&T seek out the company as they begin the development of next generation billing systems because the carriers know that Asentinel is up-to-date on their customer needs and expectations. Moreover, its patented software creates a demand for a high level of detail in the invoices to be able to validate the invoice charges.

“There will never be a perfect, off-the-shelf, one size fits all billing system that the carriers can offer, because every customer contract is different and every customer’s telecom needs are dynamic,” said Fisher.

Fisher said that what the carriers can do is make sure the billing they offer is tested and scrutinized by the company’s software to know that they have provided as much detail as necessary.

“Though there are hundreds of TEM providers in the world, carriers chose to partner with Asentinel’s EDI engineering team due to our experience and leadership,” said David C. Perdue (News - Alert), CEO of Asentinel.

“Asentinel, through our teaming with carriers’ billing solutions departments, is committed to ensuring comprehensive presentment, auditing and cost allocation of every charge on the invoice. It’s a distinctive competence and one that we take seriously,” said Perdue.

In related news, Next Gen Network Solutions (News - Alert) leader Global Convergence Solutions (GCS) has also been recognized by leading carriers for its proprietary routing and rating capabilities. Recently, when DoubleHorn Communications, a leading provider of VoIP phone services and high speed broadband Internet access for small and medium business (SMB), decided to expand its offerings to the wholesale market, company officials knew that GCS was just the company to help with that transition.

“We found that GCS (News - Alert) had a very unique platform in the fact that they had a ton of domain knowledge based on their previous experience, but they still managed to make the offering pretty simple and very focused and let us know that it was going to be about rating and routing calls,” Tab Schadt, CEO of DoubleHorn Communications, told TMCnet.. “They got us up to speed very quickly. They put us in position to scale and to create those flexible services offerings that could mesh well with our already existing customer base.”