Choosing A Voip Billing Solution

By Author: Carl Lewis
Total Articles: 4
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If you are planning on launching VoIP services, you will inevitably be faced with the question 'How will I bill for the services we provide?'
Billing for VoIP services can be a daunting task as there are a wide variety of additional features (included minutes, call forwarding, voicemail, IVR, ring groups, callback, etc) that must be accounted for on top of the standard origination/termination services.
Assuming you don't have Development staff in-house to build a custom system, you will have to evaluate a variety of systems on the market. A simple web search for 'voip billing software' will return many pages of options.
There are two main models when it comes to selecting your voip billing system; Bundled or Stand-alone.
Bundled refers to a billing system produced by the same company as your switch/PBX. The billing component is typically sold as an add-on module to your switch and runs on the same server.
Stand-alone refers to a software package that is produced by a third party development house and is not tied to any specific switch or PBX. ...
... These packages make use of generic APIs (Application Programming Interface) to integrate with your switch and other systems.
Both models have their strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we will attempt to highlight the important ones.
Cost - In most cases, the bundled model is more cost-effective as the billing component is simply sold as an additional module on top of the switch licensing. In the stand-alone model, your billing system would be a separate software license from a different company.
Performance - In the bundled scenario, the billing component is likely installed on the same server as your switch software. Although this would provide improved performance during authentication and authorization, it will severely limit scalability as your switching and billing tasks are now being performed by the same server. VoIP billing system has many resource-intensive operations (call rating, reporting, etc) which would negatively impact your switch performance while they are running. You may notice decreased call quality while you perform simple billing operations or run reports.
Integration - In the bundled scenario, the switch and billing system are produced by the same company and often are part of the same codebase. This makes deployment of a bundled solution considerably easier as the switch and billing were 'made for each other'. In a stand-alone scenario, the billing software manufacturer must write integration routines for each switch they work with.
Customization - It is very common in this industry to require customizations to your billing system. This is often done to facilitate data transfer to/from external systems or simply to enforce business rules that might be specific to your company. Manufacturers of stand-alone billing applications deal with customization on a regular basis. Every switch or PBX they must integrate with is effectively a new customization. Customization is just a part of daily life.
Manufacturers of bundled systems are less likely to engage in customization as it is not part of their daily requirement. Their billing code was written to operate with one switch (theirs) and there is little requirement to integrate with external systems.