Telecom billing system ends up as print server

By ADAM GIFFORD

Telecom's monumental ICMS billing system is to suffer the death of a thousand cuts, ending up in the mid-term as a mere printing server.

Greg Patchell, Telecom's general manager for technology strategy and capability, said a $66 million programme was under way to move most core functions off ICMS on to newer platforms.

"We have committed to ICMS long-term for some functions, so it will continue to do the physical printing of the bill, which it does wonderfully well," Patchell said.

The problem for Telecom is ICMS (Integrated Customer Management Solution), a program it developed with IBM in the 1990s, was made for a company with a public switch telephone network (PSTN) used mostly for voice and some fax calls.

Services Telecom now sells such as dial up internet, DSL broadband on copper and new generation wireless products were not considered.

ICMS does not only the rating and billing of voice calls, it also handles much of Telecom's provisioning, keeping track of where its assets are and what needs to be used to bring on new customers or services.

Patchell said to handle its DSL broadband provisioning, Telecom had implemented a new application, Axioss, bought from Alcatel, which was responsible for developing and maintaining its network platforms.

"It has taken some of the load off ICMS, but the big load around rating and fulfilment has not come off," he said. "Jetstream, whatever ISP you buy it from, requires a phone line. ICMS is oriented around a line, which goes to a line card in a physical exchange. It is fundamentally built around PSTN."

Patchell said once Telecom replaced the equipment in its public switch telephone network, a project due to start in 2006, it would be able to move phone call rating off ICMS and on to ADC Software's Singl.eView.

It is currently putting mobile and data rating on Singl.eView, in an 18-month project involving the vendor and outsourcer EDS.

ADC has been bought by Intec, which makes Telecom's mediation platform, Inter-mediatE, the software used to collect and process information on traffic carried over the network. The purchase means Telecom can expect a more integrated system.