Portal Software Inc is poised to announce real-time customer billing and management software for wireless internet service providers. Director of product marketing software Bassam Khan says the new product, Infranet 6.0, is designed to capitalize on the increasing rate at which phones and PDAs are being connected to the internet. Two years ago, Portal launched itself as a provider of billing software for internet service providers. Now that its customer list includes 150 high-end ISPs in the wireline market, it makes sense to look to wireless for continued growth. Existing systems that do wireless voice billing are not able to do wireless data billing, Khan told ComputerWire. Voice networks are circuit-switched and billed point-to-point, while data networks are packet-switched.
Carriers are trying to figure out exactly how to charge for this, Khan explained. In America, carriers are shy of charging for usage – American consumers are accustomed to paying a flat fee. But the fact is that with packet-switched wireless, every byte that goes through is at more of a premium because it’s a shared network. That’s why there have to be different ways of charging. That said, Infranet 6.0 is built to be integrated with existing wireless voice billing systems. When we talk to our customers such as Telenor, it’s clear that the carriers are believers in running both voice and IP and in having both circuit- and packet-switched networks, Khan explained. With Portal’s new software, they should be able to run both networks and charge for them as well. รก
