A leading U.S.based provider of wireless services, U.S. Cellular, uses Aepona’s Operator Payments Service (OPS) to enable its off-deck premium content business. Through OPS, their customers have greater access to mobile content and are able to participate in many interactive activities such as text-in media voting for popular television shows.
Aepona’s Operator Payments Service acts as a bridge between external aggregators, content providers and U.S. Cellular’s internal infrastructure. It is offered as a managed service, allowing service providers to maintain core focus and improve the time to market of their off-deck premium content business.
OPS utilizes Aepona’s industry leading payments technology and its advanced revenue sharing and settlement solution (PSE).
Case Study: Aepona’s Operator Payments Service Enabling Off-Deck Mobile Content Services, Expands to U.S. Cellular (R)
U.S. CELLULAR’S OPPORTUNITY
U.S. Cellular is the nation’s sixth largest wireless service carrier, providing wireless services to six million customers in 26 states. The Chicago based company employs 8,000 associates and operates on a customer satisfaction strategy, meeting customer needs by providing a comprehensive range of wireless products and services, superior customer support, and a high-quality network. U.S. Cellular maintains one of the industry’s highest levels of customer satisfaction by emphasizing customer support, quality network coverage and a comprehensive range of wireless products and services. In 2006, U.S. Cellular identified that it needed to increase off-deck mobile content revenues enabling greater customer choice and transparency.
BUSINESS DRIVER
Quickly grow premium services revenue and market share while minimizing administrative costs and providing a secure customer experience.
AEPONA SOLUTION
Aepona’s Operator Payments Service, providing fully managed end-to-end payments, messaging and settlement services, integrated with U.S. Cellular’s existing billing and messaging infrastructure, hosted and supported by Aepona.
TANGIBLE RESULTS
U.S. Cellular can now manage the lifecycle of off-deck premium services campaigns, enabling the submission, approval and launch of campaigns proposed by content providers or aggregators. They can also protect their customers from inappropriate content and rogue services by allowing them to accept, reject or ask for a revision of proposed content or services campaigns. U.S. Cellular is now experiencing increasing volumes of transactions through its network, successful purchases and reduced service costs as a result of key features of the Operator Payments Service including authentication and authorization, subscription license, refund management, automated contract mediation and enhanced customer care.
BUILDING AN OFF-DECK BUSINESS QUICKLY
For off-deck premium services to be successful for all parties in the ecosystem, the inter-relationships between content providers, aggregators and mobile carriers must be supported and their collaboration automated in order to ensure efficiency, control expenses, increase customer satisfaction and shorten service deployment time. Operators need to quickly and efficiently on-board and manage a dynamic network of participants offering a constantly evolving range of goods and services. Through Aepona’s Operator Payments Service, U.S. Cellular’s customers have greater access to mobile content and are able to fully participate in many interactive activities such as text-in media voting for popular television shows.
Aepona’s Operator Payments Service supports a wide range of mobile payment options, providing consumers with greater choice in the purchasing process. It also allows U.S. Cellular to focus on expanding its subscriber base while simultaneously enabling rapid and effective, growth of its offdeck premium service offerings.
DIRECT-TO-BILL CHARGING
Premium SMS as a charging mechanism can pose technological challenges for any operator. They must ensure correct, reliable billing for content and services, providing aggregator partners with the necessary facilities to perform billing accurately. In addition, they must provide customer support with the ability to quickly identify premium content and service charges and support appropriate resolution including refund management and subscription cancellation.
U.S. Cellular uses Aepona’s Operator Payments Service to on-board the premium service aggregators who manage and route cross-carrier premium content purchases / subscriptions. Aepona automatically and transparently manages direct-to bill charging for U.S. Cellular, providing third parties with a secure, transactional interface to their billing infrastructure. These interfaces provide reliable transaction processing and subscription management, and are designed to support the implementation of current and next generation charging for premium mobile services. In addition, the service provides support for post purchase operations such as refunds and subscription cancellations. Visibility is enabled for all network participants as correlation is provided between the external transactions and the billing transaction. Since it is near real time, funds availability can be checked at the time payment is requested allowing aggregators, content and service providers to determine if payment was successful before granting access to the service or delivering the content.
AN INTEGRATED PAYMENTS AND SETTLEMENT SOLUTION
Aepona’s Operator Payments Service acts as a bridge between external aggregators, content providers and U.S. Cellular’s internal infrastructure. It is offered as a hosted service, allowing U.S. Cellular to maintain core focus and improve the time to market of their off-deck premium content business. The service utilizes Aepona’s industry leading payments technology and its advanced revenue sharing and settlement solution (AeponaPlus™). All financially relevant details about every transaction are tracked and recorded. Revenue sharing is allocated according to the terms applicable to that transaction only after successful payment authorization and confirmation. Using Aepona’s browser-based management interface, U.S. Cellular defines the terms that govern the settlement for every transaction to reflect its contractual arrangements with all relevant participants. These contracts may contain multiple contract terms, depending on the business rules as defined by the operator.
MANAGEMENT INTERFACES
Aepona’s Operator Payments Service includes a full range of system management tools which allow U.S. Cellular’s billing, marketing, customer care and operations staff to easily manage the solution. Browser-based management interfaces include partner selfcare facilities to streamline partner management and reduce support overhead, with no software installation or support costs.
CUSTOMER CARE AND PROTECTION
Aepona’s customer care feature enables U.S. Cellular’s customer care associates to support customers providing complete transparency of all transactions and subscriptions. A customer care representative may issue refunds, and cancel subscriptions on behalf of a customer. It also provides the customer care representatives with full visibility of the content provider and the campaign details associated with transactions and subscriptions. Full transaction traceability means U.S. Cellular can investigate problems involving third party content providers and take appropriate action. In this way they can protect their brand and increase customer loyalty.
CHOOSING AEPONA
U.S. Cellular chose Aepona for its worldwide experience in providing payments and settlements solutions to every type of operator, both large and small. U.S. Cellular benefits from Aepona’s in-depth market knowledge and ability to customize the platform to suit its current business needs, with the flexibility to support future market developments and technology evolution. Aepona’s secure, market proven, 24×7 supported hosting solution enables fast, cost-effective deployment.
