Gaining access to low-cost PSTN terminations is a pressing issue for prepaid service providers. While there are two main ways to interconnect with the PSTN, both can be cumbersome. Yet becoming a so-called virtual operator can address these trouble spots, enabling providers to offer services from outsourced networks while still maintaining the ability to choose carriers and routes, and manage the network as if it were their own.

Of the two most common approaches to accessing PSTN terminations, the first is through a direct hardware connection to the PSTN.  To do this, you will need a media gateway controlled by a softswitch. Another increasingly common approach is through SIP peering, which enables you to route your calls directly to a wholesale carrier who provides outbound call terminations (where the call goes from the IP network to the PSTN network and recipient’s phone).  For SIP peering, a session border controller (SBC) is used to connect to TDM-facilities owned by wholesale carriers.  Either approach enables your calling card subscribers to make calls through the PSTN.

Both methods can be sophisticated and resource intensive. You have to consider: Are you up to these technical challenges?  Prepaid service providers looking to implement an IP-centric prepaid service tend to fit into one of two categories:

1    You want to be technically involved and will procure a prepaid services platform and build out a network.

2    You do not have a heavy-duty technical team and want to focus your energies and capital more on marketing and sales channels rather than switching. 

For the first category of service provider, you currently face a myriad of hybrid platform technologies to pick from. Many of these products are derived from TDM-based components and add some SIP call signaling.  So even though they may be capable of interacting as a back-to-back SIP user agent, their service call logic is not implemented using a scalable IP application server that supports easy-to-use service creation software development.  These solutions often use IP component terminology to make you think you are getting next generation technologies.

For the second category of service provider, you have traditionally had to decide whether or not to white-label a prepaid service from a service provider who partitions their IP network resources.  Again, this sounds appealing but what is under the covers?  Is it really a modern IP network architecture powered fully by IP network components including media gateways, softswitches, SBCs, media servers, and application servers?  You need to look behind the marketing pitch to understand how many IP-based benefits are really there – i.e., cost reduction, flexible application feature content and development.

But there is another alternative for the service provider who wants to leave the technical challenges to someone else and not make a large initial investment. A new breed of service providers that are “carrier neutral” are now taking full advantage of pure-IP network and service architectures to deliver a turnkey, prepaid solution to prepaid service providers.  They can essentially act as Prepaid Virtual Operators (PVOs) without all of the typical up-front capital or manpower requirements. One such company is WCGS, headquartered in Amityville, New York with network facilities in New York City. 

WCGS is run by people who understand the prepaid business because they used to run RSLCom, once one of the largest prepaid companies in the USA.  They not only provide their customers with the technology to start a services business, but also the business know-how to make them successful. WCGS has all of the necessary IP network components provisioned in their network that support a turnkey, partionable, SIP-based prepaid service built on a pure-IP service delivery platform. This enables the core WCGS business model, which is to completely facilitate any sized prepaid service provider – from 100 to 10s of thousands concurrent calls.

What makes WCGS stand out beyond the network and hosted service is that they allow these service providers to control their own businesses as if they owned their own networks.  This is done by integrating the switching platform with a sophisticated business management system, which can be run by non technical personnel and includes:

•    Carrier Analysis

•    Service Provider Partitioning

•    Seamless Carrier Rate Loading/Updating

•    Sophisticated Profit and Loss reporting

•    A Customer Care web portal

•    Automated LCR Generation Capability

•    The ability to control Retail Rates and Maintenance Fees

•    The ability to run an array of other reports that provide all key business metrics necessary to run your business 

That means the hosted service provider can act as a PVO, giving them full control over carrier selection and route access as well as other costs that, unless monitored, can bring a prepaid service provider to a grinding halt.  This is especially critical in these demanding economic times.

So you don’t have to wait to make your strategic SIP/IP prepaid services platform move.  Acting as a PVO, you can get all the benefits of actually being facilities-based as well as get the business management tools you need to be successful as prepaid service providers make their ultimate “switch over” to the future.



Ken Osowski is VP of Product Management for Pactolus Communications Software, whose IP service applications include prepaid, post-paid, conferencing and operator assistance. Contact Ken at kosowski@pactolus.com.