Kcell completes single-billing transition with Nexign

2023: Completion of Billing Consolidation Project on Nexign Converged BSS Digital Platform

Ksell Joint-Stock Company (hereinafter referred to as Kcell) is an operator in the telecommunications market of Kazakhstan and the CIS, and Nexign, a supplier of BSS systems and solutions for business digitalization, completed the project of combining the operator's billing on the Nexign Converged BSS digital platform. This was announced on January 10, 2023 by Nexign.

During the implementation, more than 8 million subscribers of two brands of the company, Kcell and activ, were migrated to all segments on Wednesday. Moving to a single convergent billing platform will help Kcell reduce its total cost of ownership (TCO TCO), accelerate product deployments market , and expand the capabilities monetizations of various types of services, including and. 5G eSIM Modernization and consolidation of the systems will also allow the operator to improve the stability of all operations services and improve the quality of service of subscribers.

With Nexign Converged BSS, the operator will support key online charging, converged billing, product offering management and partner services processes on a single platform. As part of the implementation, a unified product model was also created to optimize the development of updated services and their rapid introduction to the market. At the same time, compliance with Nexign Converged BSS international industry standards 3GPP and TM Forum Open API helped minimize the cost of integrating more than 50 operator solutions into the system.

Kcell won the December 22 and 23, 2022 5G frequency auctions. In the next five years, the operator will build more than 3,500 base stations and cover 75% of cities of republican importance and 60% of regional centers with 5G technology. As the fifth generation network develops in Kazakhstan, it will be based on technological products and services that require 5G speeds, in particular, in the segment of smart IoT devices. At the same time, the scalable architecture of the converged billing system will ensure business growth while reducing capital costs. This billing will also reduce time to market (TTM) and implement flexible marketing strategies, providing competitive features of the company, told the director of the development of digital billing systems Kcell Nurzipa Kariboztegi.

The implementation project started in April 2021. The transition to the platform was carried out in several stages, while the operation of the previous billing solutions Amdocs and Orga continued. The migration of the B2C and B2B segments of the operator took place in parallel - more than 140 existing tariff plans and about 1000 Kcell product offers were transferred to another platform, which used both a credit and an advance form of payment for services. The project approach allowed the operator to seamlessly switch to updated sales and service tools and processes.

From the point of view of the scale and timing of migration, the project with Kcell is a digital project on the telecom market of Kazakhstan. A joint team of Kcell and Nexign worked on its implementation. Thanks to their efforts, it was possible to carry out a comprehensive technical transformation of the operator's systems within the planned time frame with a phased migration of the subscriber base. One of the key features of the project was the ability to choose the migration segment up to the tariff or even the product offer, which made the entire process of switching to the platform as invisible as possible for users. We are confident that combining billing will help Kcell significantly improve the efficiency of many business processes, increase subscriber loyalty and increase the return on investment in other areas of development, commented Mikhail Matyushin, CTO of Nexign.

During the implementation, technologies for automating development and testing processes were used, as well as the Configuration-as-Code approach. Using CI/CD practices, it was possible to combine the process of industrial operation of the system with significant changes in settings and migration of the entire subscriber base to the platform. At the same time, in the future, the open solution architecture and DevOps approach will allow Kcell to continue using all current automated processes when operating the system with minimal supplier participation.

2022: Start of the second phase of Nexign Converged BSS implementation

On February 25, 2022, Kcell announced the completion of the first stage and the beginning of the second stage of the project to install the Nexign Converged BSS solution.

The initial configuration of the system has already been completed and the pilot operation of the updated billing for the allocated group of subscribers has been launched. The second stage will include further configuration and additional tests of the billing platform, as well as trigger migration of subscribers and will end with the commissioning of the system into commercial operation. As part of the next stages, the company's existing subscribers will be migrated to an updated billing system.

All work is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. The project is aimed at expanding existing services, as well as introducing completely new ones, which will make the use of new products more convenient for both the company and its subscribers.

2021: Implementation of Nexign Converged BSS platform

Nexign (part of ICS Holding), a provider of business support systems (BSS), and Kcell, one of Kazakhstan's telecom operators, have signed an agreement on the introduction of the Nexign Convergent BSS billing platform. The contract provides for the replacement of several legacy systems with a single solution, phased migration of subscribers to another environment, as well as the provision of technical support services. Nexign announced this on April 14, 2021.

Kcell JSC is one of the mobile operators in Kazakhstan that supports GSM, UMTS/WCDMA, LTE (4G) and LTE Advanced standards. The company serves almost half of the country's population, its subscribers for April 2021 are more than 8 million people. In the market, the operator operates under the Kcell and Activ brands, the first of which is aimed at a business audience, and the second at the B2C segment.

The partnership with Nexign will allow Kcell to reduce operating costs for operating the billing system, as well as accelerate product launch and expand opportunities for monetization of services. In addition, Kcell plans to use Nexign Converged BSS to reduce the burden on contact centers and subscriber offices by implementing self-service services by 20-30%.

The joint project with Nexign will help Kcell not only improve business efficiency, but also enrich customer experience and ensure subscriber loyalty. Based on many years of experience in Central and Central Asia, as well as best practices developed in collaboration with global leaders, Nexign will support the development of Kcell's digital capabilities, says Igor Gorkov, CEO of Nexign.

Nexign Converged BSS has the capabilities to help Kcell accelerate business transformation and move beyond classic telecom services. Cooperation with Nexign will allow us to offer subscribers up-to-date products and services and thereby increase profits, laying the foundations for working in the digital economy, "says Yuri Kharlamov, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer of Kcell JSC.