Re: Direct Carrier Billing

A key issue with carrier direct billing is what I call the 'balance
sheet constraint'. Carriers have honed their business systems to
facilitate and charge for customers' consumption of communication units
(minutes, MB, etc.) When faced with the opportunity to facilitate and
*underwrite* consumption of additional goods, the system will quickly
fail to scale.



I am certain people are working on it -- does anyone on the list know
who has this in focus, and how they are proceeding?



I'd imagine a companies like Bango would have something to do with
it...


Madhu Nott
The Payments Foundry
[1]mnott@paymentsfoundry.com





On Tue, May 13, 2014, at 10:11 AM, Kumar McMillan wrote:

Yep, this API was extracted from Mozilla’s current integration with
Bango. However, there are no current plans on the platform team to
implement the Direct Billing API.



To answer your orginal question: the third parties you mention have
explicit agreements with operators (such as AT&T) to bill customers on
their respective direct billing systems. Some systems involve web
services, some rely on operator-injected headers, and in most cases
they just work by passing codes in SMS messages to identify the
customer. Once a user has set up an initial purchase it’s pretty
seamless after that.

Kumar

On May 13, 2014, at 7:41 AM, Andrew Bovingdon <[2]andy@bango.com>
wrote:


That’s a great direct API. Mozilla and Bango are partners and committed
to delivering the highest quality direct billing around the world.




From:Huang, Deqing [[3]mailto:deqing.huang@intel.com]
Sent:13 May 2014 12:58
To:조경호
Cc:[4]public-webpayments@w3.org; Andrew Bovingdon
Subject:RE: Direct Carrier Billing

Maybe you will be interested, Mozilla also has a draft of Direct
Billing API:[5]https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/Direct_Billing

Regards,
Deqing

From:Andrew Bovingdon [[6]mailto:andy@bango.com]
Sent:Wednesday, May 07, 2014 11:20 PM
To:조경호
Cc:[7]public-webpayments@w3.org
Subject:RE: Direct Carrier Billing


I recommend taking a look at the top two documents
on[8]http://bango.com/contact/whitepapers/- i.e.:
-Beware of BOB! Mobile payments in disguise
-Direct Operator Billing versus Premium SMS

Direct carrier billing is where the payment is  conducted through a
server to server call between the payment provider (such as Bango) and
the carrier’s own billing platform. Not via messaging services (PSMS)
or via 3^rdparty intermediaries.

The 2 white papers above give a load of specifics. Beware of BOB also
lists 5 tests to confirm it’s direct.

Carriers are usually direct, although some have used PSMS due to
limitations with older systems. Most of the app stores use Bango for
direct carrier billing – e.g. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, BlackBerry,
Mozilla etc. Google does a few themselves and Microsoft uses one other
company I believe.

Hope that helps.

Andy.



From:조경호[[9]mailto:khc2332@nbreds.com]
Sent:07 May 2014 09:34
To:[10]public-webpayments@w3.org
Subject:Direct Carrier Billing

Just wondering something... I am little confused when it comes to the
term 'Direct Carrier Billing'. I though Direct Carrier Billing only
implemented by telecom companies such as At&t, Verizon wireless,
T-mobile. However, there exist third-party direct carrier billers such
as BilltoMobie, Boku, OpenMarket, Payfone, Zong. What does they do?

References

1. mailto:mnott@paymentsfoundry.com
2. mailto:andy@bango.com
3. mailto:deqing.huang@intel.com
4. mailto:public-webpayments@w3.org
5. https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/Direct_Billing
6. mailto:andy@bango.com
7. mailto:public-webpayments@w3.org
8. http://bango.com/contact/whitepapers/
9. mailto:khc2332@nbreds.com
  10. mailto:public-webpayments@w3.org