Experience Implementing MVNO Billing and Charging
Two Australian MVNOs run their billing on our platform. The larger one grew from one brand to four without changing billing systems, and now rates about 10 million CDRs a day.
The short version
EarnBill has taken 2 Australian MVNOs live. The larger one runs mobile, fixed-line, VoIP and internet services for 225K subscribers across 4 brands on a single platform, processes about 10 million CDRs a day from 12 mediation formats, had 3 brands live within its first year and grew revenue by more than 100% in three years.
One MVNO, four phases, one platform
The client was a full-service Australian telco: mobile, fixed-line, VoIP and internet, each running on two or three wholesale carriers. Plan fees were billed in advance and usage in arrears on the same invoice. They were moving off an existing billing system, so everything had to happen in live production without a gap in billing.
Phase 1: an internet brand, subscriptions only
We started with the simplest brand: recurring plan fees, no usage. It gave the team a live system quickly, with an Australian payment gateway and branded invoices and emails.
Phase 2: the VoIP brand
This phase added data migration and subscriptions carrying several VoIP numbers, with extra numbers billed as recurring add-ons.
Phase 3: the main telecom brand
The biggest brand and the biggest integration. Five carriers, including two mobile network operators, sent usage in 12 different file formats. We also went live with the CRM integration for on-boarding, SIM activation, plan changes, call credits, data pools and usage alerts.
Phase 4: a second mobile brand
A year later the client launched a new national mobile brand on the same entity, with its own invoices, notifications and payment merchant account. It went live within two months of kick-off and grew the client's business by about 70% over two years.
Read the full story in the Australian MVNO case study.
What MVNO billing had to handle
- Multi-brand on one entity. Same business rules and plan structure behind the scenes, separate invoice designs, notifications and payment collection for each brand.
- Carrier mediation. 12 file formats from different carriers, normalized before rating so one plan could price usage from any network.
- Regulatory notifications. SMS alerts for data usage and call credit thresholds, which the client's compliance obligations required.
- Collections. Automated direct debit runs, retries on overdue invoices and both e-bills and printed bills.
- Finance and tax reporting. Reports the finance team could file from, not exports they had to rework.
- Later additions. Real-time data usage in the app and portal, credit notes with immediate balance effect and international roaming.
Our second Australian MVNO, an NBN and broadband provider live since 2017, runs prepaid subscription billing, invoicing and payment collection on the same platform.
What this work taught us
- Start with the easiest brand. Going live first with a subscription-only brand gave the client a working system and gave us real production feedback before any usage billing was involved.
- Multi-brand does not have to mean multi-tenant. Running every brand on one entity kept plans, rules and reporting in one place, while customers still saw separate companies.
- Carrier files are the long pole. Twelve formats from five carriers took more effort than any other part of the project. Budget time for it, and test with real files early.
- A new brand should be a configuration job. Because the platform was already multi-brand, the fourth brand took two months, most of it spent on branding and a new payment merchant account rather than billing logic.
Questions operators ask us
How long does it take to launch MVNO billing on EarnBill?
A plain vanilla deployment takes about a week. A full production go-live with carrier mediation, data migration and CRM integration typically takes 8 to 12 weeks, depending on complexity. On our Australian MVNO, a new mobile brand went live within two months.
Can one billing platform run several MVNO brands?
Yes. Our Australian MVNO runs 4 brands on one platform, each with its own invoices, notifications and payment collection, while sharing plans and business rules.
Does EarnBill support prepaid and postpaid MVNO billing?
Yes. EarnBill runs prepaid, postpaid and hybrid plans, with a real-time online charging system for prepaid balance control over Diameter and RADIUS.
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