Value-added IP services and applications are coming into the network thick and fast but operators and service providers are a long way from being able to bill each other for them. However, just as the pace of new technology complicates billing issues, the number of potential service providers balloons. The traditional telephony and internet markets are seeing activity from a number of new entrants. The billing chain now extends beyond traditional telcos and service providers to portals, financial institutions and high-street retailers. Local loop unbundling is giving rise to a whole new market for resellers looking to bundle value-added services together.
ASPs allow businesses to receive a suite of application software over the web.
The format is seen as so lucrative that everyone from IT companies to consultancy houses have jumped into the market. Oracle has aggressive targets to transfer provision of its software to the ASP model. But billing issues in the ASP world are barely resolved yet. ASP services are provided through data centres and run over broadband networks. For most companies, ripping out old billing systems to replace them with new ones is simply not an option.