Prepaid 2 Postpaid Convergence

Pre2Postpaid Convergence as a concept can be seen both as business and as systems convergence.

In terms of business, community and/or friends & family price plans may involve both prepaid and postpaid subscriptions under the same billing entity (i.e. account), incorporating:

• Postpaid top-ups to the prepaid subscriptions (periodic and ad hoc),
• Postpaid-driven policy management aspects (e.g. parental control) upon the prepaid subscription (e.g. silent time), 
• Postpaid-driven alarm notification for the bill shock prevention,  
• Cross payment method discounting schemes (e.g. for each X Euros spent by the prepaid subscription, a Y-Euro discount is given to the postpaid subscription),
• Ability to migrate the prepaid subscription to postpaid, retaining at the same time the available credits as well as the event-source (MSISDN or telephone number).

As far as systems convergence is concerned, typically until now, postpaid billing is an IT-driven activity through the use of an IT Billing System, whereas prepaid billing is a Technology-driven activity through the use of the Intelligent Network.

The new business scenarios (such as the aforementioned one) clearly impose a Pre2Post convergence that should be implemented and supported by one single system (one rating & billing engine), offering both off-line and on-line capabilities.

Off-line capabilities are obviously needed for the postpaid billing, whilst the on-line capabilities are essential for the prepaid billing but also for some aspects of the postpaid one, such as policy management and alarm notification.

Open Item or Balance Forward?

Open Item Accounting Method constitutes a common practice for the billing of Corporate Companies and Other Licensed Operators (OLOs) Accounts, primarily because it offers great flexibility in payments allocation and matching as well as in processing of invoices disputed amounts.

To elaborate further on this, according to the Open Item Accounting Method, each generated invoice constitutes an open item against which a payment is allocated. Moreover, the outstanding balance consisted of the previous invoices is not embedded in the next invoice.

On the other hand, according to the Balance Forward Accounting method implemented mainly for Residential, Professionals, SOHO etc, each generated invoice consists of prioritized subtotals (e.g. interest-bearing amounts, non-interest-bearing amounts, etc). These prioritized subtotals, stemming from all generated invoices, form the account balance. A payment in this case is not allocated towards a specific open item (i.e. invoice), but towards the whole account outstanding balance covering the subtotals of the highest priority and in case of the same priority the oldest ones (FIFO). Also, the outstanding balance consisted from the previous invoices is actually embedded in the next invoice.

Apparently, the aforementioned Balance Forward Accounting practice is much more complicated and more difficult to follow when, for example, processing invoice disputed amounts that must not get covered whatsoever, since a payment may very well cover disputed amounts of older invoices.

Net Neutrality & Wikileaks

The great WikiLeaks scandal has less to do with the publication of state secrets from US Embassies around the world and their threat to national security and more with how the secrets got out in the first place.

Undoubtly, it's embarrassing to read on the Internet what senior state leaders think about each other, but the fact the information got out in the first place is of much greater concern.

For the telecommunications industry, and Net Neutrality Principle in particular, the fragile arguments in its favor have totally collapsed in a matter of days. Yes, many countries already practise some form of net censorship; but having US authorities force the closure of WikiLeaks’ Amazon hosted sites and (presumably) launching countless DoS (denial of service) attacks against WikiLeaks, makes the Net Neutrality argument at least farcical.


How hypocritical will it now be for regulators (such as FCC) to foist for Net Neutrality on the telecommunication industry when governments have resorted to extreme measures in the case of WikiLeaks?


Indisputably, it is the very independence of the internet that is now most under threat.