The Hindu Business Line : Portal Soft eyes more high-value clients

`The operators are now concentrating on the average margin per user and the bulk of the revenues for telecom operators would come from value-added services such as wireless data and content in the future'.

New Delhi , June 6

PORTAL Software, a billing solutions provider in the telecom sector, plans to acquire more high-value clients in the Indian telecom space.

"We are negotiating with a couple of telecom and broadband players. Our billing software can easily handle value-added services, apart from simple voice traffic," Portal Software Country Manager, Mr Shailendra Singh, told Business Line.

The operators were now concentrating on the average margin per user as against the average revenue per user and the bulk of the revenues for telecom operators would come from value-added services such as wireless data and content in the future, Mr Singh said.

``It is difficult to provide a billing solution to data services, because the charges are not a function of the duration of usage, but of the value of the service. It is much simpler to measure the value of a voice call, as it is only a function of the duration of the call,'' he said.

Another trend, Mr Singh said, was the rapid growth in the number of pre-paid subscribers worldwide. ``Globally, people are moving towards pre-paid services while post-paid services are actually shrinking. Providing a billing solution for pre-paid subscriptions is even more challenging as the service provider needs to keep track of the available charge value and whether it can accommodate the service the customer is seeking,'' he said.

Portal already has Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd , Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Data Access as its customers in India.

``We are not looking at a large number of clients as that would be difficult to service. We want a limited number of high-value clients who are likely to grow rapidly and survive in the extremely competitive market,'' Mr Singh said.

He said service providers would have to aggregate different services under a single umbrella to survive in the future. .

``The Internet service providers (ISPs) failed because the users had to deal with separate entities providing access and connectivity. For the user, it should be a single service provider taking care of all the needs. Telecom providers, on the other hand, suffer from lack of content,'' Mr Singh said, adding that the industry had realised these shortcomings and was already trying to offer more value to customers.