Billing and Bandwidth Management Solution

Internet has become a part of everybody's professional and personal lives. Not only are enterprises, increasingly using the internet to boost productivity, increase communications and efficiently use time bur property agents too offer residential apartments with internet access as a part of their sales pitch.

24online is a global player in billing and bandwidth management solutions and has an expertise that has been honed over 1000 installations that extend to 96 cities and 20 countries across the globe. Its enterprise/ residential billing and bandwidth management solution enables centralized billing and control.

24online provides stellar bandwidth management function, which allows bandwidth allocation. Further, it helps control the misuse of bandwidth by providing variable bandwidth; enterprises can use this facility to allocate higher bandwidth according to users or time. For e.g. the enterprise can set a higher bandwidth connection for the MD of the company. The enterprise can thus control costs and save revenue leakage.

24online also meets the stringent requirements of the authentication mechanism within enterprises. The inbuilt RADIUS server and NAS (Network Access Server) ensure AAA and help enterprises manage users through captive portal gateways and allow access only on authentication of userid and password. Its scalability feature further ensures accurate billing solutions for growing organizations and residential areas over Wi-Fi, WiMax and cable.

FEATURES

	Billing: 24online provides a comprehensive, easily deployable billing solution to internet service providers. This solution provides
		Pulse-based Rating: Accurate billing ensures satisfied customers. 24online measures your customer’s use of the service on a pulse of minutes. This leads to improved accuracy in charging the customer.
		Flexible invoicing: this facility allows you to invoice for any type of cycle (monthly, daily, hourly or any combination) and even charge differently for different times of the day or week. Additionally, it offers you the flexibility of offering discounts, increasing the options you can offer to your customers and adding to customer retention.
	24online supports you across various access networks like
		Cable
		DSL/ADSL
		Fiber To The Home(FTTH)
		Wi-MAX
		MAN Networks
	Subscriber management: 24onlines enables you to simplify the subscriber management cycle and provide instant service through its different features
		Automatic Account Creation: 24online offers a highly scalable, flexible account creation that allows you to create complex and individualized offerings with ease for a few hundred to millions of subscribers.
		Auto Subscriber Alerts: This useful feature helps you keep track of your subscribers Internet usage and renewals on a continuous basis, provide reminders and send auto alerts at no extra costs.
		Account Deactivation: 24online offers automated, policy-based suspension, modification and deactivation of accounts when your subscribers exceed their account limit in terms of data transferred and duration of use. This controls revenue leakage.
	AAA: 24online allows ISP/WISPs to launch a multi-location hotspot network anywhere in the world through a centralized 24online server which handles AAA requests and maintains a central user database. The centralized server controls the distributed 24online access controllers, allowing providers to maintain a widely distributed hotspot network across cities and countries. Additionally, the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting processes are integrated in the 24 online solutions. They provide authentication critical for your network’s deployment and ensure that reliable authorization works seamlessly with your accounting system.
		Authentication: One of the major problems of wireless networks is the ease with which they can be penetrated, thus, authentication is critical for their growth. Through 24online, authorized subscribers can access the service, based on username and password. Automatic denial of access to unauthorized users reduces the incidence of fraud and ensures greater cost controls. Additionally, 24 online helps by
		i)	Providing transparent authentication through MAC address, simplifying procedures for handling dynamic and static IP customers. This feature also helps you choose whether to provide or deny different levels of service.
		ii)	Providing a web-based login. This leads to ease-of-use for the subscriber and reliable authentication.
		Authorization: 24online's authorization allows subscribers access to the various resources based on their MAC address (Media Access Control) and IP address. Since IP addresses change as the network device moves from one network to another, checking the MAC address is necessary as they generally remain fixed and follow the network device. This double check provides greater accuracy in authorization.
		Accounting: 24online makes sure that the revenue corresponds to the service used and ensures that your offers are accurately billed. Thus, it helps block all possible revenue leakage points.
	RADIUS server: 24online's AAA is supported by a built-in RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service) server with the reliability and scalability that can support millions of subscribers. It allows service providers to manage all their users and all their points of presence.
	Leased Line - Dedicated Subscriber Support: Leased lines and dedicated subscriber connectivity bring in high revenue, hence, 24online provides transparent authentication through MAC address, ensuring accuracy. This feature also simplifies handling of dynamic and static IP customers and control different levels of service
	Customizable web self care: This user-friendly feature reduces the demands on your manpower by simplifying procedures for your subscribers. The features include
		Password Change Facility: this fully-automated facility offers protection to your subscribers.
		Usage Logs: 24online provides past records of time of usage and data transferred to your subscribers, ensuring transparency and increasing trust. Your subscribers can thus, have an idea of their pattern and extent of usage and plan their usage and renewals accordingly.
		View Bandwidth Usage Graphs: Pictures speak more than words. 24online's bandwidth usage graphs give your subscribers a graphic view of their usage patterns.
		Subscription Renewal through PIN: 24online not only allows you provide custom made packages to your subscribers but also provide them the flexibility to choose or renew their packages anytime.
	Bandwidth management: Subscribers use your service to download applications like, music and video downloads and peer-to-peer files sharing. These applications reduce the Quality of Service (QoS) for all subscribers in the network. 24online helps you overcome these problems by
		Bandwidth control ensures Quality of Satisfaction in subscribers. 24online helps allocate bandwidth quotas on an individual and shared basis.
		Burstable Bandwidth Allocation (CBR) enhances the customization of ISP/WISP by allowing them to offer excess bandwidth to subscribers when overall usage is low at any point of time.
		Variable Bandwidth Policies allow ISP/WISP to further customize their offerings based on time of day. Thus, reducing heavy downloads after office hours.
		Bandwidth Restriction: This feature helps you control the excessive bandwidth consumption. This in turn increases speed in connectivity and controls costs
		Committed Bandwidth Allocation (CIR): 24online ensures that you deliver on your promises, by allocating committed bandwidth to subscribers. This enhances your customer satisfaction and leads to customer loyalty
	Detailed subscriber and network reporting: 24online helps you in decision making by providing you extensive reports in tabular and graphic formats on critical data like bandwidth consumption, data transfer, active and inactive subscribers and audit reports of action taken at any point of time. The various reports are
		Online Users' Bandwidth Consumption and Data Transfer: This report helps you identify possible flooding and other attacks from compromised computers.
		Individual Subscriber Data Transfer: Details of upload and download of data transfer of individual subscribers is provided to you. This helps in analysis and identification of subscriber demand and helps in formulating attractive offers for them.
		Time-based Bandwidth Usage: This report contains data on bandwidth usage. The data can be customized to include a particular year, month, week or day; enabling you to decipher pattern of usage and forecast peaks and troughs in bandwidth usage and devise packages based on this real data.
		Active - Inactive Subscriber Detail: 24online helps you know your exact customer base through reports on active, inactive and total subscribers. It helps in identifying high profile customers and targeting them.
		Audit Reports: 24online saves all activity performed on the web and console management interface and provides audit reports of the same, allowing service providers to pinpoint the action taken at their end.
	Package Management: the increasing competitiveness in the ISP market demands greater flexibility from service providers. 24online provides a comprehensive, scalable solution to your billing and marketing needs. It allows you to customize your offers based on reports and market trends, yet retain the accuracy in billing. You can offer packages based on
		Data transferred
		Duration of use
		Bandwidth Allocation
	Diagnostic Tools: These centralized tools help in streamlining your administrative process and reducing the need for extra manpower hours. They provide prompt service to customers and help build customer loyalty
		In-built DNS and DHCP Server ensures
		i)	Automatic translation of domain names into IP addresses through the inbuilt DNS (Domain Name System) server.
		ii)	Assigns dynamic IP addresses to devices on the network through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. Service providers can add new computers to the network without the trouble of manually assigning unique IP addresses to them.
		24online informs administrators about virus attacks so that they can take timely action.
		The backup of database is required by law. 24online allows administrators to take the backup. The backup can also be taken of all subscriber usage, and sent to the administrator through FTP and mail transfers.
		Subscriber Diagnostic Tool ensures automatic checks on connectivity and troubleshooting from a central location. Thus, 24online increases your company’s efficiency without the loss of time or deployment of large number of personnel.
		Auto Check for Network Connectivity: 24online also provides network tools to check network connectivity automatically through ping, trace route and DNS check. These tools help in instant identification of the problem and reduce instances of customer complaints.
	Multiple Gateway Load Balancing and gateway failover: Continuous connectivity and high speed distinguish a reliable service provider from the rest. 24online's multiple gateway load balancing and gateway failover makes optimum use of the links automatically, so that you provide continuous, high speed connectivity, automatically. As it is automatic, it saves you from costly and time-consuming manual interventions needed to identify the problem link and divert traffic to a working or under loaded link. Thus, this feature provides you the double benefit of increasing customer satisfaction and reducing overhead costs. The main hallmarks of this feature are:
		Balancing Traffic on Multiple Links: 24online balances traffic between multiple Internet links through the weight-based round robin method. This enables you to deliver the promised speed in connectivity.
		High Speed Links for Premium Customers: Premium customers usually operate critical applications that need high-speed, continuous connectivity and are willing to pay the price for it. You can now tap this segment effectively and increase your profitability.
		Gateway Failover: Failed links creates unhappy customers. 24online checks the status of the gateways on a continuous basis, detects failures in real time and automatically redirects traffic to working gateways providing a break-free service to customers.
	Access Gateway: 24online functions as an Access Gateway and delivers an easy-to-manage, comprehensive solution to service providers. Its inbuilt NAT (Network Address Translation) and routing, allows a single interface to WAN at the local or central location. The access gateway helps in
		Enhancing scalability: 24online provides appliances, functioning as Access Gateways to large providers. Thus, enabling them to offer broadband and Wi-Fi offerings across cities or even countries.
		Providing services: the Access Gateway also allows small and medium scale providers to offer internet services in their area by incorporating the centralized NOC (Network Operation Center).
	Provide Dynamic Public IP to Customers: 24online's static NAT (network address translation) module maps dynamic private IP addresses to a static public IP address. This feature allows you to economize by limiting the number of expensive public IP addresses they need to purchase. Additionally, NAT prevents direct incoming connections from the Internet to the subscriber's computer enhancing security.

BENEFITS

	Reduction of Revenue Leakage: 24online’s facilities of automatic deactivation of accounts and allocation of bandwidth quotas reduce revenue leakage.
	Ease of Use: The easy-to-use graphic interface allows trouble-free implementation of multi-service offerings and does not require a high level of technical knowledge. Through instant renewals of prepaid PINs and password change facility, 24online allows subscribers to easily make changes in their accounts and helps in customer satisfaction.
	Customer Satisfaction: The instant account activation and automatic provisioning facilities allow subscribers to access the service immediately on sign-up. Further, auto alerts and reminders also cater to customer satisfaction.
	High Scalability: 24online offers a flexible and scalable system that supports rapidly growing businesses and eases the strain on customer-related functions.
	Reduces Error Incidence: The high automation offered by 24online reduces the chances of human error.
	Reduced Incidence of Frauds: The built-in RADIUS AAA, provides accuracy by checking IP and MAC addresses and considerably reduces the incidence of frauds.
	Improved Cash Flow: Easily deployable prepaid packages increase cash flow and reduce bad debts.
	Low Operational Costs: Sale of prepaid PINs at retail counters reduces operational costs to service providers.
	Increases Competitive Strength: 24online allows service providers to offer a range of prepaid and postpaid packages adding to their flexibility and competitive strength.
	Balanced Bandwidth Usage: With well-framed discounts, peaks and lows of bandwidth usage are reduced. This brings about balanced usage, reducing strain on bandwidth.
	Extra Source of Revenue: 24online's invoice facility allows the service provider to carry advertising messages of third parties, increasing revenues.
	Effective Marketing: 24online provides information to service providers about the subscriber usage trends. This can be effectively utilized by the service provider in its marketing policy.
	Greater Quality of Service: Restricting heavy bandwidth applications by high usage subscribers, frees bandwidth and gives high QoS, leading to higher customer satisfaction.
	Lowers Manpower Requirement: Centralized checks on network connectivity and auto backups through 24online reduce the need for large numbers of personnel to manually check the cause of trouble.
	Enables instant service: Automated checks on network connectivity, help in easily pinpointing the exact cause of trouble, leading to immediate deployment of resources to solve the problem. This ensures continued customer satisfaction, loyalty and great word-of-mouth publicity.
	Identifying and Judging Efficacy of Action: 24online's audit reports help service providers in evaluating their actions and judging their efficacy.