N OB I L L ON L I N E CH A RG I NG SYS TEM

N O B I L L O N L I N E C H A RG I NG SYS TE M

Symsoft develops leading real-time telecom solutions for mobile and convergent operators within the areas of charging, messaging and value added services. Renowned for its ability to deliver, Symsoft enables operators in an increasingly competitive world to improve both attractiveness and ARPU. All application solutions are based on the carrier grade Nobill platform which exceeds operators requirements for business critical functions due to its modular platform architecture and innovative technology. Symsofts customers include leading telecom operators such as Millicom, Polkomtel, Qtel, Saudi Telecom, Telefonica, Telenor and TeliaSonera. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Symsoft has local presence in four regions and operational systems in more than 30 countries.

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GAI N I NG EG dE wITH NOB I LL ON LI N E CHARG I NG SYSTE M

Being able to charge for services is crucial to all operators. An operators success depends on its ability to create service bundles and campaigns that attract the most valuable subscriber segments, and charging solutions must be flexible to adapt offers to changing market demands. It is also essential that charging systems offer momentarily updated information on subscriber information such as account balance and service use. Nobill Online Charging System (OCS) offers flexibility so that operators can focus on growing their business without being limited by technological constraints. Used by operators all over the world, Nobill OCS meets up to the challenges that operators are facing today.

STAY IN CONTROL
As a result of higher mobile penetration and a wider variety of monetary transactions being executed over mobile connections, operators today manage a constantly increasing amount of money on behalf of their customers. Just a few years ago, charging systems mostly handled transactions related to the use of voice and messaging services, but today they are expected to manage so much more; a few examples are settlement of content purchases, payment for external services and money transfer. This underlines the need for operators to have a constantly updated control of subscriber credit to minimize credit risk and revenue leakage. Subscribers are also more willing to use new services if they feel that they are in control of the spending. Using Nobill OCS, all charging transactions are made in real time, meaning that funds are reserved on a subscribers account before a service is delivered. During service use, funds are continuously committed and new funds reserved, effectively making charging an integral part of service delivery. This ensures that services are only provided if there are funds to cover for them. Naturally, Nobill OCS allows for a subscriber to have multiple communication sessions open simultaneously while maintaining firm control of the account balance. The built-in support for customer interaction and notifications also makes it easy for subscribers to keep continuous track of their spending.

REACH THE RIGHT SUBSCRIBERS

With mobile penetration reaching saturated levels all over the world, the needs and habits of mobile subscribers are also becoming more diverse. Also, different subscriber segments have different expectations on their mobile service. To maintain profitability and avoid being caught in costly price wars, mobile operators must create unique offers that target the needs of specific market segments. Additionally, it is important to have powerful tools to communicate campaigns to customers based on their subscription type and usage history. Nobill OCS enables operators to build tariffs, bundles and campaigns to reach specific subscriber segments. With a powerful rating framework that can charge based on a wide selection of service and subscriber related parameters, Nobill OCS offers operators a versatile marketing toolbox, giving them the freedom to design service offers with a short time-to-market. Furthermore, its extensive support for real-time subscriber communication provides operators with an excellent tool to selectively reach out to subscribers with campaigns based on their subscription types and service usage history, notifying them of upcoming bonuses to trigger additional usage.

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KEEP IT SIM PLE
It is essential to have a charging solution that allows for the rapid creation of attractive offers and keeps an updated view of transactions. At the same time, the solution must be easy to expand and simple to maintain and configure. Built on proven hardware and software technologies, Nobill OCS provides the availability that operators require. Using Sun Microsystems hardware implies that it is available on a broad range of platforms to meet any capacity need and allowing for future growth. All functionality is accessible through an intuitive graphical user interface, the Nobill Client, where operator staff can access functions such as rate plan, campaign management, detailed traffic, transaction tracing and customer care.

NOB I LL OCS FEATU R ES

Nobill OCS provides an extensive set of marketing tools to let operators differentiate their mobile offers and reach their target subscribers. Below are a few examples of how Nobill OCS can provide a competitive edge to operators. Community charging Community charging makes it possible for the operator to segment the subscriber base and tailor campaigns to communicate offerings to a subscriber community with specific interests. As people within communities often interact with each other, community members effectively participate in marketing the services they use themselves. The operator is able to define and create any number of communities in the system, and any number of subscribers can then join the community. Once a subscriber has joined a community the system will give him or her discount when calling or texting another member of the same community. The operator can also offer discounts for other services, for instance to download clips related to this community. An example of community charging could be the Manchester United Football Club Community where all members get 10 % discount when calling each other during weekdays and 20 % during match days. Furthermore, all members of the community get 20 % discount on all football movie clip downloads. This community can be joined by calling to the customer care or by self-service via IVR or USSD. USSD End of event communication With this feature it is possible for the operator to communicate with the subscribers in real time. Several types of communication are enabled with this feature, for instance information messages notifying the subscriber about the current balance or that a threshold has been passed. Another example is a promotion related message that can inform about an awarded bonus or a discounted tariff. A message can be tailored for a specific customer segment, for instance to subscribers that are part of a community. Messages can also be set to inform the subscriber about the cost of the latest call or about upcoming bonuses. This feature improves

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customer intimacy and increases customer control. Furthermore, it reduces the load on voice machines and customer care. Bonus for accumulated usage Nobill OCS can keep track of a subscribers accumulated usage during a predefined period. This is done with counters that can be associated with any type of service such as voice usage, mega bytes of data sent/received or number of SMS sent. It can for instance be the number of minutes used or the number of sent SMS messages during the past week. Based on the usage, the operator can grant bonuses or adjust tariffs, all in real time. Cross service promotions are also possible with this feature, for example: * Get five free MMS after 50 minutes of voice calls during next week! * Get 10Mb of free GPRS traffic when 100 SMS have been sent! * Get one free MMS for every 10 SMS sent! * You have sent 9 MMS, send one more and you will get five SMS for free! This is a powerful tool when building loyalty programs and it can be used to stimulate usage among the subscribers. Inter-account money transfer Nobill OCS can allow one subscriber to transfer funds from his/her account to another subscribers account. This can be done by sending a USSD message including the receiving number, the amount of money to transfer and a PIN code. Telescope charging for voice cheaper rate for longer calls Using real-time charging, operators can apply different tariffs during the same call. For instance it is possible to apply one rate for the first five minutes and a cheaper rate for the next coming minutes, and even a free tariff after 30 minutes. The system will analyze the call and during the call adjust the rates in real time. The rate adjustments are created and administered in the tariff tool. This feature will stimulate longer calls and more usage of the network. Tariff based on current balance With this feature it is possible to adjust the tariff based on the level of funds available on the account and switch tariffs depending on threshold levels set on specific accounts. For instance, the more money available on the account the less the subscriber will

pay for voice and/or SMS and/or GPRS traffic. A number of balance thresholds can be configured in the system and if a threshold is passed a new tariff will come into effect when the next session is initiated. This feature will help increase the number of top-ups in the system. A higher balance on the subscriber account will lead to more usage among subscribers and an increased cash flow for the operator. Subscriber self care Nobill OCS provides extensive self care tools using different interfaces, e.g. USSD and IVR, with the possibility to integrate it with external systems. The subscriber can interact with the system to check current balance, service usage history, activate and configure services and more. Bonus for top-ups To stimulate the subscribers to do more top-ups to their accounts, the operator can grant specific recharging bonuses with this feature. The bonus can be granted based on number of top-ups during a specific time period or on the total amount of money refilled. The bonus that can be activated might come in different shapes. For instance a move up to become a gold subscriber, a prolongation of the subscription or to get a certain number of MMS messages for free.

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NOBILL TECH FACTS

Software Architecture Nobill OCS consists of two main parts: Front End: SCP, SMS charger, GPRS charger, MMS charger, USSD gateway and IVR Back End: SDP, Rating Engine, Voucher Management system, Customer Care and Customer Database in order to increase capacity. The Oracle database in the Back End is typically located on a separate machine. The database server scales with the hardware capacity of the server and the disk solution selected. Rating also scales with CPU power. The system can be dimension to handle from 100,000 to over 20 million subscribers. A real-case benchmark has proven a capacity above 5,000 transactions per second. Hardware Platform For the hardware platform Cisco IP switches and Sun servers are used. The Back End consists of a pair of Sun servers, where one is active and the other is stand-by. Availability The availability of a delivered Nobill OCS is normally equal to or greater than 99.999 % The system is designed with hardware that is capable of handling high-level peak loads. Operations & Maintenance This can be handled centrally or managed remotely from several locations. Nobill OCS can be integrated into an existing system environment to capitalize on established alarm, and operations and maintenance equipment. Migration of Customer Data Symsoft works closely with the operator to ensure smooth migration. Symsofts tools and expertise can be used, if the operator so desires.

Nobill Client

Nobill Charging Nobill Front End SCP SMS Charger GPRS Charger MMS Charger USSD GW IVR Nobill Back End SDP Rating Engine Voucher Mgnt Customer Care Customer DB

Administration Servers

Data Warehouse

The Nobill Client is a Java-based graphical user interface. It handles all system administration, along with the creation of prepaid products and subscription types. Nobill OCS communicates with mobile networks using CAMEL phase 1, 2 and 3, as well as INAP. Nobill tools for ETSI SS7 facilitate the integration of Nobill OCS into the existing mobile network. Symsoft has developed the SS7 software in-house. Therefore, it is easily adapted to various vendorspecific protocols. Scalability & Capacity To meet future capacity demands, Nobill OCS consists of a number of components that are modular and separately scalable. For the Front End, the system scales linearly with the addition of each new server. The administration server, which handles all configuration including customer care and web interfacing, can be allocated to separate servers 6

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Symsoft takes great pride in having the expertise and ability to combine the quality standards of the telecom industry with the versatility of the computer industry. The Nobill platform is easy to use. It offers excellent performance and superior availability.

Nobill serves operators in more than 30 countries together having more than 100 million users. Symsoft works closely with operators to innovate, develop and deploy competitive services.

Symsoft develops leading real-time telecom solutions for mobile and convergent operators within the areas of charging, messaging and value added services. Renowned for its ability to deliver, Symsoft enables operators in an increasingly competitive world to improve both attractiveness and ARPU. All application solutions are based on the carrier grade Nobill platform which exceeds operators requirements for business critical functions due to its modular platform architecture and innovative technology. Symsofts customers include leading telecom operators such as Millicom, Polkomtel, Qtel, Saudi Telecom, Telefonica, Telenor and TeliaSonera. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Symsoft has local presence in four regions and operational systems in more than 30 countries.

Corporate Headquarters Symsoft AB Kista Science Tower Frgatan 33, PO Box 1219 SE-164 28 Kista, Sweden Tel +46 8 566 166 00

Middle East & Africa Symsoft MEA Dubai Internet City P.O. Box 500649 Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel +971 4 36 16 637

Americas Americas Symsoft Inc. 5700 Granite Parkway, Ste 200 Plano, Texas 75024, USA Tel +1 972 731 6708

Asia Pacific Tel +46 8 566 166 00

2010, Symsoft AB. All rights reserved.

4 February 2010