Achieving Flexible WLAN Billing through Standardised Roaming Agreements
by Richard McBride, Director of Strategic Futures with Intec Telecom
Systems
Billing for WLAN is a major challenge, especially with the simultaneous existence of 2.5G, Bluetooth and 3G. These are complementary access technologies, working together to offer the maximum for customers. But how can companies get ONE bill for the lot? Anyone who has tried roaming with WLAN in practice knows that each tiny little hot spot provider usually has its own costing system. How do corporations use all four technologies and pay just one bill?
The answer is through creating global roaming agreements between WLAN providers and network operators, and building the systems needed to support them. This is essential to providing the seamless global coverage that customers currently enjoy with mobile phones. Unfortunately, roaming agreements with hot spot owners, clearing houses and other service providers are not yet standardised and this will require a lot of work from the industry. But it is possible.
The mobile world managed to pull it off thanks to the collaborative efforts of organisations like the GSM Association and mobile operators. Seamless mobile roaming is now possible through the GSM TAP 3 and US Cellular Industry Billing Exchange Record (CIBER) standards, which offer a transfer account procedure for mobile operators. In other words, a standard for data has been established so that data records can be passed from one operator to another so that systems know how much to pay. These standards have also helped to set up the framework for a business relationship – something that WLAN desperately needs. For example, an operator can gain access to a mobile user’s account information for billing or establish the timeframe required to settle accounts between roaming partners. With the mobile roaming standards in place, users can make calls anywhere in the world and be charged for the call in next month’s phone bill. The same roaming and billing arrangements can be achieved for WLAN but it will require coordination to set up workable interoperability standards.
Roaming Scenario
Once standardisation occurs, WLAN providers, network operators and carriers can create their own roaming agreements to ensure that seamless connectivity and payment agreements take place. For example, suppose the UK’s 7 major airports become WLAN hotspots and an operator offers network coverage in all these locations. BAA, the owner of these airports, can negotiate a roaming agreement to allow customers with WLAN enabled 3G phones to seamlessly access the airports’ WLAN services. The phone can be set up to instantly switch out of the 3G network and into the WLAN network the moment the user reaches the airport’s designated WLAN area. As an existing mobile customer, all the ID and relationship requirements for billing is already in place, so the user does not need to develop relationships with the WLAN service provider. They can simply access the WLAN service immediately as an existing customer and see the charges in next month’s mobile phone bill. The same billing scheme can apply with other services, such as Bluetooth or 2.5G, provided that roaming agreements with the mobile operator are in place.
Other requirements
Once a roaming agreement has been established, service providers have to ensure that they have the right authentication and authorisation systems to support the user’s WLAN requirements. This includes instant access to external systems to validate credit cards, pre-paid accounts and debit cards as well as control over user sessions. The technology to achieve this business requirement is already available through real-time convergent mediation. This back office platform acts as an interface system between the network and the billing applications, enabling operators to collect, process and deliver information on the traffic passing through its network. This helps to offer support for the multiple organisations that are involved in the delivery chain between the provider and consumer.
For example, if a WLAN user wants to purchase a train ticket online with a credit card, the network provider must have the capability to ensure that consumers are properly authenticated to receive services, that payment is available, and that the revenue generated is correctly distributed. A flexible convergent mediation system makes sure that the information is collected and delivered so that content services can be set up between partners, brought into service, recognised on the network, and then accurately and securely billed. Real-time mediation functionality can also ensure that consumer details are accurately authenticated in real-time for payment and that content or transactions can be priced, delivered and charged using different business models, with each partner receiving the correct revenue share.
Mediation systems are also essential to supporting the billing solutions that make it possible to produce one bill for multiple services, such as WLAN, 3G and Bluetooth. The system can gather raw data from all types of network devices, including switches, routers and servers and then feed the information into the appropriate billing information.
Wholesale billing solution
Of crucial importance to the WLAN settlement process is a flexible interconnect billing platform, which enables a service provider or operator to charge others for using their network and services. With interconnect, settlements can be finalised between roaming partners (i.e. hotspot operator BAA might need to settle payment with Vodafone) or WLAN hotspots and the carriers that provide network connectivity (i.e. BAA would need to pay BT for supporting WLAN across its network).
Most major operators and carriers, such as Vodafone, BT and Orange, already have interconnect and mediation solutions in place, so WLAN and other service providers do not need to worry about getting their own systems - they can rely on their interconnect partner to take care of billing, at least initially. However, interconnect billing needs to meet the specific business requirements of WLAN and other new services such Bluetooth or 3G. This includes different interconnect business models and scalability to support increasing subscriber numbers. The solution also needs a strong policy engine to allow for the creation, delivery and billing of a variety of services from different technologies (2.5G, 3G, Bluetooth etc.). These might include content options, subscription or pay-as-you-go access and key geographic roaming access. The interconnect system must also be flexible enough to support different types of content - such as video clips and picture messaging - and to bill according to specific criteria, such as size and bandwidth of content data.
Moving ahead
Finding the right mediation and interconnect to support WLAN billing will be a lot easier than establishing the necessary roaming agreements. But progress is being made. Organisations such as Pass-One, which include ISPs, mobile carriers, and fixed line telcos, have been created to focus on WLAN roaming standards. Their mission is organise the WLAN market by allowing the smaller and medium WLAN hotspots to survive, as well as to gather the community around a legal entity that will allow the enforcement of a service standard in the industry. On the technology front, smart card provider Gemplus recently announced that it is working with wireless Internet provider Transat Technologies to include Transat’s Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) technology in its smart card. This will make Gemplus one of the first companies in the world to develop the standard for devices that will roam between WLAN and mobile phone networks.
Even with all this progress, however, it is difficult to predict when WLAN roaming will become a reality. It took the mobile industry 10 years to establish really effective inter-operability and roaming billing systems. It is unlikely to take the WLAN world as long, but the technical issues to be overcome before it achieves the phenomenal success of GSM should not be ignored.
