LONDON, UK - January 9, 1998 - Cisco Systems and Belle Systems today announced development of a professional billing system which will allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecommunications companies to differentiate their services and increase billing flexibility according to network usage, quality of service (QoS), and differing network charges.
The new billing system will combine Cisco's NetFlow Accounting with Belle's system for Internet subscriber management, the Internet Management System (IMS). The IMS can consolidate information from multiple distributed flowcollectors, enabling it to collect data from a series of NetFlow Collectors. Based on this data, the IMS will be able to bill by usage, time, bandwidth allocation, distance (e.g. local vs. long distance traffic), application or quality of service. The IMS will also be able to differentiate the NetFlow charges between different network charges for international and increasingly local traffic.
"The ability to control differentiated billing will be one of the biggest challenges for ISPs in the future," says Hasse Rasmussen, managing director of Belle Systems. "The collaboration with Cisco will allow Belle Systems to market its products to core customers. In addition, Belle Systems will, through close collaboration with Cisco's development team, ensure that the billing system is compatible with Cisco products at the point of shipping, therefore enabling Cisco and Belle to deliver to the market's growing demand for advanced billing systems."
Until now, billing has been on the connection point, but there has been a growing demand from customers for professionally provided billing systems that will benefit the customer through differentiated pricing structures and fuller package options. Cisco's router-based NetFlow technology enables mission critical benefits for both service provider and enterprise customers by recording the traffic classification or precedence associated with each flow, thereby enabling premium charging for premium network services.
"Cisco has been working to develop a flexible billing system for the European market. The collaboration with Belle Systems, and indeed other billing platforms, will provide service providers with a complete solution to differentiated customer charges," said Gary Kunis, chief science officer for Cisco Systems Europe. "The alliance, which involves Cisco's investment of engineering resources, is also significant in that it provides a real European presence through investment in a European technology company."
In addition to the engineering resource that Cisco will be providing, a fully functional test lab will also be established. This will enable Belle to provide comprehensive testing and customer demonstrations of the products.
Belle Systems A/S
Belle Systems A/S is a leading Danish software producer specialising in advanced billing and management systems designed for larger Internet providers. Belle Systems has been providing solutions for the on-line market since 1984, and through a number of years has completed installations at a number of large European banks and telecommunications companies. Belle Systems management product is based on a platform provided by the leading hardware and database suppliers.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information areavailable athttp://www.cisco.com.
Cisco IOS is a trademark, and Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the CiscoSystems logo areregistered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain othercountries. All othertrademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respectiveowners.
