Many consumers believe that a communications service invoice should contain information about their current expenditure, the services they are now using, and the services they are paying for. It is crucial to comprehend how telecom billing systems function since, in actuality, telecom billing systems are only intended to explain how much you owe, not why.
A Brief Overview of telecom billing systems
Even the term “telecom billing” has many distinct meanings to many individuals. It is difficult to define, and the more you go into the rabbit hole, the more difficult it becomes. Many of the choices made by the IT staff about the technology they support are influenced by telecom bills. OSS and BSS services is an overhead cost that needs to be carefully tracked in the eyes of the finance team (but many lack the visibility to do so). The executive views telecom bills as the price of maintaining the business's connectivity. It represents how much money you owe the service provider.
Observe how each side offers a little different point of view. It makes more sense to start with what telecom billing isn't rather than what it is. The telecom billing is not your bill. It's nearly hard to translate an invoice into intelligible English if you've ever tried. They never explain the reason behind the charge, and no two ever appear the same.
The Operation of Telecom Billing Software
The Online Charging System (OCS), which charges each transaction instantly, is the charging platform that telecom billing software connects to. Every time a device on your network communicates with the telecom system, the OCS keeps track of and records that communication as a Call Data Record based on use and communication type (for example, data usage, call minutes) (CDR).
The possibility of billing errors is decreased because data is captured in real-time. However, those figures still need to be compared with the other billing elements mentioned above to calculate how much you owe precisely.
When you use prepaid billing, the OCS charges your account instantly, and if you have a credit limit, you are immediately alerted when you have gone over it. After that, you can choose to change services or add credit to your account with telecom billing vendors.
When you choose OSS Solutions for Telecom, the OCS keeps track of the amount on your account and creates an invoice over a particular billing cycle, subtracting or including applicable discounts, taxes, and fees. After the billing cycle, you then receive that invoice, but simply by glancing at it, you might not know what you're paying for or, more significantly, why.
When you don't know what you're paying for, what happens?
Caretel wouldn't exist if telecom billing systems were simple enough to comprehend after reading a single blog. With the knowledge provided above, you might be able to comprehend how your telecom invoices are computed, but you still probably lack the skills necessary to spot billing issues, cut out unnecessary services, or even grasp what you're paying for. We can nearly always ensure that you are overpaying for subpar technology when that occurs.