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August 17, 2005, London
- Azure Solutions, the revenue-assurance company, today announced that
it has provided a convergent-billing and margin-management solution
based on its Azure Inter-Party Management product for Applied Satellite
Technology (AST), a leading supplier of satellite-communications systems
and airtime.
AST sells satellite airtime for all the major satellite networks,
offering both data and voice services to clients ranging from largest
corporate bodies and governments to individual users. It required a
system to enable it to bill customers for both pre- and post-paid
services and to settle with individual satellite providers periodically.
The billing platform generates approximately 6,000 bills per month,
produces invoices for retail customers and AST resellers and works out
the cost per call, producing statements detailing the costs payable to
the individual satellite carriers. This enables AST to manage more
effectively its margins and cash flow. Each service provided by AST has
its own set of complex tariffing and rating rules, therefore multiple
EDR (event data records) feeds needed to be translated into the standard
Azure Inter-Party Management format within one convergent billing
system.
Azure Inter-Party Management, the first part of Azure's next-generation
revenue-assurance portfolio, provides real-time rating, billing and
partner management. Azure Inter-Party Management allows AST's customers
and satellite providers to view their data and business online, and by
providing online self-care AST is able to interact and settle with them
more effectively.
Jason Abbott, business development manager at AST, said: "The nature of
our business means that we are continually working with a variety of
partners, and it is essential that we are able to bill and settle with
all of them efficiently. We were very impressed with Azure's technology
and expertise and now we have a solution in place that gives us full
confidence in being able to do this."
John Cronin, CEO and president of Azure Solutions, said: "We are very
pleased to be working with AST and this is a great endorsement of the
functionality of our Inter-Party Management product. Billing multiple
partners can be a major challenge for many organizations, therefore it
is essential that they can effectively manage their partner
relationships so that they can collect all due revenue."
About Azure Solutions (www.azuresolutions.com)
Azure Solutions is the world's largest revenue-assurance company. It is
headquartered in London, with people in Westminster (Colorado), Ipswich,
Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta,
Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Mexico City. Azure's end-to-end
revenue-assurance product portfolio for current-generation networks
includes Data Integrity, Wholesale and Interconnect Billing,
International Settlements, Fraud Management, Mediation, Management,
Translation and Rating, Event Integrity and Route Optimisation. Azure
has launched Azure Inter-Party Management and Azure Fraud Control System
as the first products in its next-generation portfolio. Azure provides
individual products or complete revenue-assurance solutions using a
common platform and any combination of products that a customer might
need. Customers can choose a system that they own and operate themselves
or a bureau that Azure manages on their behalf. Azure has over 60
customers across the world comprising PTTs, mobile operators, national
operators, carrier's carrier and cable TV companies. Azure has
significant carrier experience and understands the problems faced by all
these operators.
The company's heritage can be traced back to BT in the early 1990s.
Azure was spun out of BT in April 2003 and is backed by New Venture
Partners, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and Intel Capital.
Recently Azure won the 'Best Revenue-Assurance Project' award at the
World Billing Awards 2005 in London, and 'Most Promising Company' at the
TeleStrategies Billing & OSS World Excellence Awards 2005 in
Philadelphia.
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