Europe : Far East telecoms companies unencumbered by legacy billing systems are ready to take advantage of the new services becoming available with 3G - unlike their European counterparts.

Andy Humphries ( inset ), CTO of Accipia, the Cambridge based revenue assurance and billing software consultancy, warns that board level decisions need to be made now if operators in Europe are to compete effectively. With the launch of 3G in the UK, Accipia has experienced an increase in demand for its consultancy services and is expanding as a result.

'The launch of 3G in Taiwan earlier this year has attracted half a million subscribers, the range of new services it offers creates enormous potential for the operators to increase revenue per user,' Andy Humphries comments.

'In our discussions it is increasingly apparent that operators have not woken up to the full implications of 3G on billing and as a result taking these new services to market will be severely delayed unless strategic decisions are made now by senior management.

'Operators need a flexible billing system to ensure new services can be offered to all their customers at the same time - both post and pre-paid accounts. The benefits of converged billing are clear. It can cut time to market, rationalise customer support and reduce churn, by enabling group discounts to 'lock in' families.

'But operators are struggling with an organisational structure based on a legacy of dual billing and this will severely damage the competitiveness of those companies unless steps are taken now to address these issues.

'We have recently conducted a strategic review of the status of the pre and post paid convergent (PPC) market and the findings should be essential reading for the board.

'3G is already gaining popularity in Taiwan and Korea and Indonesian operators have already introduced convergent billing. A few operators in Europe have recognised the challenge but many others have not yet begun to address the issue. Our estimates suggest that the first truly convergent charging offers will be available in Europe at the back end of 2005'

Before co-founding Accipia earlier this year, Andy Humphries was a senior strategic consultant for Convergys. He was responsible for early discussions with Intelligent Network Vendors and others to map out the way forward in convergent billing.

'The risks to a teleco of being an 'early adopter' needs to be weighed against the threat of lost market share. The solutions available are many and diverse, and are subject to passionate and conflicting interests in the vendor community.

'Clearly PPC is an issue for the board not the IT department and there is a need for independent and unbiased consultancy.

'Our recommendation is for operators to adopt a strategic vision at the highest level and to put in place a structured path to convergence. Incremental changes will achieve the best result, as organisational changes can be managed inline with the system upgrade. This strategy ensures that key architectural decisions are reviewed across both IN and IT groups to ensure adopted architectures lie on the path to convergence.'

Accipia have moved to larger offices at St John's Innovation Centre, Cambridge, UK.