Telenor creates common billing platform for Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand

Telecommunication service provider Telenor Group has introduced a unique cross-border billing platform across three of its Asian business units, in a bid to adapt to customer needs and leverage on its scale.

Three business units in Telenor group across Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand, with a combined total of 60 million customers, will deploy a common solution for billing and charging, the first for any telecom operator, the company said in a release.

All customers in Telenor Pakistan, DiGi (Malaysia) and DTAC (Thailand) will be managed by a common IT platform for charging and billing, which, the company claims, will increase its competitive advantage. 

''The merger of three widely different solutions represented one of the most challenging IT sourcing projects Telenor Group has ever undertaken,'' the release said.

This has been achieved despite the different telecom management systems needed to capture myriad sources of voice, SMS, data and subscription-related input - in the context of national regulations, privacy requirements and a rapidly increasing overall traffic load, the company pointed out. 

"This is innovation at the very core of a telecommunications company. It's a strategic requirement to build flexible systems for billing and charging in an environment where business models are constantly changing. In the future, operators will need to find inventive ways of packaging the new data-based services in a way that consumers find attractive.