Understanding Prepaid Accounts for Communication Service Providers

This chapter discusses:

• Prepaid accounts.

• Prepaid account lifecycle process.

• Billing and prepaid accounts.

• Installed product and service relationship.

• Bulk account and service creation.

Prepaid Accounts

This section discusses:

• Benefits

• Features

• Implementation considerations

Benefits

All wireless service providers offer their customer the option to pay in advance for wireless services that will be consumed later. This type of service, called a prepaid wireless service (or prepay) has a number of advantages:

• The service provider receives the money up-front.

• When there are no funds available on a prepaid account, the service is suspended.

  This reduces the collections activity required by the service provider.

• Because funds are paid before the service is used, service providers do not need to perform credit verification.

  Customers with poor credit can get access to wireless services.

• Because there is no credit verification there is no need for customer information. Customers can be anonymous.

Features

The prepaid account offers the following features:

• Anonymous customer for creation of accounts through storefront.

• Pre-provisioning and post-provisioning.

• Integration with fulfillment system.

• Manual or automatic activation depending on the source.

• Holds for customer data validation and number pool validation.

• Searches by phone number.

• Top up and management of the prepaid account.

• Bulk order creation of prepaid accounts and installed services.

Implementation Considerations

Consider the following when planning your implementation:

• Prepaid accounts can be created through a new order or imported from the prepaid billing system. Imported accounts are automatically assigned to the anonymous prepaid consumer.

• Only one account is available per order. Only one prepaid service is available per account.

• Prepaid accounts integrate with installed product for service account handling.

• Prepaid accounts are accessed from the 360-degree view or Service Management by the phone number or customer information.

• The prepaid billing system is the holder of the account information. The CRM prepaid account mirrors what it gets from the prepaid billing system. PeopleSoft provides error handling for situations when the billing system is down.

Prepaid Account Lifecycle Process

The new order BPEL process (Telco New Order BPEL) coordinates the creation of the installed product and the two billing accounts (CRM and external prepaid). The process then notifies the HLR about the new account, plan, and information.

The process involves the following steps:

1. Create the CRM account.

2. Create the installed product in CRM with the status set to eitherPending Call-Activation if shipping is necessary or Pending Auto-Activation if the order was fulfilled at the storefront.

3. Create an account in the external prepaid billing system with the status set to Activated. Associate it to the CRM account.

4. If necessary, the fulfillment system fulfills the order.

   If shipping is involved, the Telco New Order BPEL process will end. A separate BPEL process called Telco Activate Service runs when the customer calls in to activate the service.

5. Assign plan MSISDN numbers to the new account.

6. Activate on the HLR, the IMSI and MSISDN with the selected plan.

7. Hotline the service if there are no funds in the account and set the Installed Product status to Pending Top-up. If funds are available set the Installed Product status to Activated.

8. The customer can add funds and manage the prepaid account either through self-service or by calling into the call center. Changes to the account can also be made externally through the prepaid billing system facilities and will be reflected in the CRM system.

See Order Capture Delivered Business Processes and Web Services.

Billing and Prepaid Accounts

A messaging protocol must be established with the prepaid billing system. Information is retrieved from the prepaid billing system on demand using both synchronous and asynchronous inbound/outbound messaging. The synchronous messages need to be answered for the CRM system to manage the prepaid account.

Asynchronous Messaging

The asynchronous messaging consists of two inbound XML messages coming from the third-party billing system:

• The RBT_IPSTATUS_MSG updates installed product related information from the third party billing system on existing accounts not yet reflected in CRM. This message is used to make updates to the Installed Product status, the prepaid account status, and the Number Management service number where indicated.

• RBT_PPD_BULK_CREATE initiates the bulk creation of prepaid accounts and installed products within CRM. Typically this is used when the service provider wishes to make a large number of pre-provisioned prepaid phones available for sale in the system, such as at a retail outlet.

Synchronous Messaging

The synchronous messaging consists of several outbound XML messages going to the third-party billing system to retrieve account data for display:

• RBT_PPD_BAL_RQST – Request to third party billing system initiated from the Balance and Payments page of the Account component to retrieve current balance and status. Response information is displayed on the page.

• RBT_PPD_USAGE_RQST – Request to third party billing system initiated from the Usage page of the Account component to retrieve usage history. Response information is displayed on the page.

• RBT_PPD_PAY_RQST – Request to third party billing system initiated from the Payments page of the Account component to retrieve payment history. Response information is displayed on the page.

• RBT_PPD_AUTO_PAY_RQST - Request to third party billing system initiated from the Balance and Payments page of the Account component to retrieve current recurring payment settings. Response information is displayed on the page

• RBT_PPD_TOPUP_SUBMIT - Post to third party billing system initiated from the Balance and Payments page of the Account component to record a credit card or bank account payment. Response information is displayed on the page as an informational message box

• RBT_PPD_VOUCHER_SUBMIT - Post to third party billing system initiated from the Balance and Payments page of the Account component to record a voucher payment. Response information is displayed on the page as an informational message box

• RBT_PPD_UPDATE_AUTOPAY_SUBMIT - Post to third party billing system initiated from the Balance and Payments page of the Account component to add, update, or cancel recurring payment configuration. Response information is displayed on the page as an informational message box.

Installed Product and Service Relationship

You can designate products to be sold only with a prepaid account, a postpaid account, or with no restriction. For example some services are not available through a prepaid account and some are not available through a normal billing cycle account. Most products are available without restriction.

The billing account type of Prepaid Only, Postpaid Only or Either is established when the product is defined. The Billing Options group box, which allows you to specify the types of accounts that can be used to pay for charges of the product (new or installed), appears only for the communications industry as delivered and is controlled by display templates.

When you save a package the system ensures that the package does not contain services that have both the prepaid and postpaid values. If a mix is found, an error is shown and the package not saved.

See Setting Up Product Components, Defining Products.

Account Activation

There are two methods to activate a prepaid service:

• Single activation

• Bulk activation

Single Activation

In this process a customer purchases a SIM card and phone, usually from a carrier's retail store. The activation of the prepaid service can take place either through an agent at the retail store or through the carrier’s call center .

To activate the service through a storefront:

• The Customer Service Representative requests the SIM number.

  This information, together with the SIM management module, is used to identify the IMSI associated with the SIM.

• A MSISDN is selected from the pool of free MSISDNs.

• A service plan is selected, and configured.

• An order is placed which will:

  • Create a Prepaid Account, in Active state in the Prepaid billing system.

  • Activate The IMSI and MSISDN with the selected service plan in the HLR. Calls are hot-lined meaning any calls go to the call center until the account has funds added to it.

  • Send the Prepaid billing account number to the CRM system.

  • Update the Installed Product with a status of Pending Top-up.

• The account is in Pending Top-up status until funds are applied.

  The customer can purchase a prepaid card/voucher to apply funds to the account, or can pay cash at a retail store to apply funds to the account. When funds are applied to the account, the status of the account is changed to Active. An account can be in active status as long as the available balance is greater than zero. Some prepaid systems expire funds after a period of non-use, this is determined and controlled by the prepaid system. The CRM system is just reflecting information obtained from the prepaid system.

• The customer can now use the prepaid service

Note. If the activation takes place through a call center, the order needs to be fulfilled and there is an additional step for the customer since they need to call in and activate the phone.

Bulk Activation

In the bulk activation process, a range of accounts are pre-created in Pre-Active status, in the prepaid billing system for a range of ICCIDs.

Typically when a bulk load is performed, the Service Plan associated with each ICCID and the starting balance (usually zero) is specified. A prepaid billing account is created for each ICCID. Each billing account has a status of Pre-Active.

Phone kits that include a handset and a SIM(ICCID) with MSISDN can be packaged and sold by retailers. To activate the service the customer purchases a prepaid card and follows the instruction in the box. No contact is required with a customer service representative to activate the prepaid service. However the prepaid customer can contact the call center, or use self-service for post activation support.

Common Terminology Used for Prepaid Accounts and Wireless Communication Industry