By Ben King, 6 April 2001 17:22
NEWS Systems integrator ICL has won the contract to implement a Geneva billing system for the unbundled local loop in a deal worth £0.5m. The system will bill for all the costs incurred by DSL providers who house their equipment in BT's exchanges, including power consumption and the costs of space. This is the first time Geneva's software has been used in this way - it normally bills for voice and data traffic or broadcast services. Geneva already provides the billing systems for three other BT departments: BT Retail, BT Cellnet and BT Ignite subsidiary BT Geoverse. This move may cause problems for rival DSL providers that use billing systems from companies other than Geneva, as they are likely to come in for a range of integration headaches if they attempt to port billing data from the Geneva system into their own IT systems. A BT spokesman confirmed that "there was no requirement" to consult rival operators about the choice of a billing system, but he could not confirm whether the issue had been raised in any discussions. "The duty of the supplier [BT] is to produce billing information that is accurate, coherent and usable," he said. "BT are happy with the quality of the billing system. There has been no suggestion of any competition issues."
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