Give back your customers the control they need and deserve 

 

Are you in control?

During the last decade, carriers around the world saw an explosion of Value Added Services (VAS). These VAS started to become very important part of the operator business. In the process of deploying VAS as fast as possible, the operator lost some control to the VAS Providers (VASP), as they were largely responsible for keeping the subscription databases, charging the mobile users, promoting their own services, etc. In many cases, the operators don't know how many services are available, how many users each service has, how many times are the users being sent promotional messages, etc.

The Edge Advanced Mobile Gateway is designed to return the control of the value added services back to the operator as well as to provide better tools for service management and customer insight.

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Benefits

  • Complete control over subscription services.
  • Better insight about your customers.
  • Strict service definition rules with content delivery policy enforcement.
  • Unified charging interface based on industry-standard OneAPI that hides the internal billing systems, prepaid and postpaid.
  • Zero SPAM. You control the SMS broadcast campaings.
  • Increased user loyalty by offering transparency and compliance to terms of service. 
  • Peace of mind - The platform is built for high performance and high availability with load balancing.

Main Features

Broadcast Control

  • Complete broadcast control - From zero SPAM to a predefined amount of messages per user per time unit
  • Black Lists - Respect the users who request to opt-out of unsolicited messages
  • Gray Lists - Users who have requested to be black listed, can still opt-in to their desired services
  • Broadcast plans - Give your trusted service providers a quota for promoting their services. You can still set the maximum allowed per user, per time unit and total number of SMS for a given period.
  • Time restrictions - Only allow broadcast messages during specific times of day and days of the week.

Subscription Management

  • Stric Service Definition - Each service can be uniquely identified, even though they may be tied to the same short number (e.g., Weather, Horoscope, Jokes, Love, News, Sports are related to the short number 2020)
  • Content delivery policy enforcement - Content providers cannot send content outside the service rules.
  • Terms of service enforcement - Only subscribed users can receive and be charged for content and only in the amount set by the terms of service.
  • Keyword matching - Flexible and powerful keyword matching capabilities improve subscription rates.
  • On-demand and subscription content - Same short number can accept subscription and on-demand request for content.
  • Off-portal purchases and susbcriptions - Subscriptions and On-demand purchases in service provider's Web/Wap portals are validated by user confirmation in operator’s portal.
  • Optional Double opt-in - Services may be defined to require a confirmation from the user prior subscription (e.g. user sends the service keyword, he/she receives a message asking him/her to confirm the subscription. Only after the user sends confirmation keyword, he/she is subscribed)
  • Operator-controlled responses - Ther operator can write its own messages for terms of service and other key events (subscription, renewals, subscription cancellations, etc.).
  • Subscription tools - The operator can easily mass subscribe or unsubscribe users to a service, when migrating current services, or when similar service to one already in production is to be launched.
  • Automatic unsubscription - Users that have not been charged for in a while can automatically be unsubcribed.
  • Multiple channel operation - Several channels (SMS, WAP, IVR, USSD, etc.) can be integrated to the platform to increase user options for subscription. They can also unsubscribe using the same channels or by calling a customer service rep.

Charging 

  • Flexible pricing schemes - Several tariffs can be assigned to a short number, so the service provider can be allowed by the carrier to ‘rip-the-bucket’; or sell a service in installments.
  • Charging policy enforcement - Service provider cannot charge outside the parameters set for the service.
  • Simultaneous content and charging - Combined SMS content delivery and charging request in the same operation.
  • Unified charging interface - Service providers are exposed to the same charing interface for prepaid and postpaid customers, regarding the internals of the operator.
  • Industry-standard charging interface - The platform implements the GSMA oneAPI charging interface.
  • Vesatile Charging Integration - It integrates with several standard, vendor-specific and proprietary charging interfaces (e.g. Diameter, Payment Server, Comverse, Huawei, etc.).

Administration tools

  • Web UI - Easy to use, Web based interface for administration, monitoring, customer care and reporting.
  • Monitoring - SNMP monitoring to easily connect to the the operator's management console.
  • User accounts - Multiple user accounts per entity with optional LDAP integration.
  • Profiles - User permission based on operator defined roles.
  • Audit - All system changes are looged in by user account, IP, time of day.
  • Batch processes - These tasks are useful in automation of periodic tasks as recycling MSISDNs, mass black lists additions, etc.
  • SMS Throttling - For controlling the number of SMS per second allowed to any user account.
  • Reporting - Rich reporting tools available for the operator and service providers.

API

  • Northbound API - Messaging, Charging, Subscriber, Location, Ticketing methods based on the GSMA OneAPI interface.
  • Access Control - Each API method can be controlled individually for access.
  • Southboud API - A comprehensive SOAP-based API for easy integration with the operator's internal systems.
  • Data API - A database access is provided through an API for retrieving data from the platform usually for datawarehouse integration purposes

And more...

  • Support for number portability.
  • Anonymous Customer Reference (ACR) support.
  • Parental controls - The operator can indicate if a service is deemed KidsSafe to restrict children to susbscribe to unsuitable content.
  • Handset capabilities.
  • Autorefund for undelivered content (requires billing systems that support refunds).

How it works

The Edge Advanced Mobile Gateway sits in the operator's data center and acts as a gatekeeper for the service providers that, instead of accessing the carrier's internal infrastructure directly, connect to the Edge's platform to send and receive SMS, to handle susbcriptions and purchases through various channels, and to charge users for content among other operations.

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Say, for instance, that a user (i.e. Lisa) wants to subscribe to the service Love Tips. She would send an SMS with a keyword (i.e. LOVE) to a short number (i.e. 2020). The SMS would go through the Edge's platform since it'd match the keyword that corresponds to the Love Tips service subscription event, Lisa would be subscribed to the service; the Service Provider would be notified of the subscription event and it would notify Lisa with the susbcription's terms of service. 

Now, the service provider would be able to send content to Lisa as per the terms of service (e.g. up to 3 tips per day, but no more than 1 successful charging event per day; or whatever combination is needed).

However, even though Lisa is subscribed to Love tips content, in short number 2020, the service provider won't be able to send her broadcast messages through the 2020 short number or any other, because the Edge's platform is able to distinguish between different types of SMS messages.

Although the above use case is for an SMS-based subscription, other kinds of content can be also controlled as well with the Edge Advanced Mobile Gateway.

Support Services

Our Support Service team takes pride in providing fast and reliable assistance to customers in a professional manner, ensuring an exceptional experience.

Our Support Service team has exhaustive experience working with the  Edge Advanced Mobile Gateway and as new support cases are handled, our continous training processes ensure that the experience is shared among the members of the team.

We listen to our customers. Our representatives will work with other teams in our company to make sure you receive the answers you need, and share your feedback with our senior management team.

We stand behind our promise to deliver timely, quality service. We measure, monitor and report to ensure our performance exceeds industry standards; however, it is your satisfaction that matters most.

Want to know more?

Should you need to know more about the Edge Advanced Mobile Gateway, please contact us. We'd love to hear from you.