NOS Portugal: Running carrier billing with the proper technology

NOS, the largest Portuguese telecommunications group and leader in digital transformation is heading to the next level in the way they run and manage carrier billing. A partner of Centili since 2018, NOS is a telco and entertainment group born from the merger of two of the biggest telco companies in Portugal. A domestic market leader, NOS has over 4.8 million mobile subscribers. It is one of the top Portuguese brands, the main sponsor national football league, and many festivals, including the huge, internationally acclaimed NOS Alive.

The sophisticated tech behind micropayments

To stay ahead in the digital ecosystem, NOS is constantly upgrading tools and vendor solutions that power their digital services. Several years back, NOS has deployed Centili technical platform to boost the manageability and structure of their carrier billing. Besides core processing, there was a need for real-time insight into transaction frequencies and values, as well as accessible reporting for different stakeholders within the NOS organization. As their strategy around carrier billing evolved, a demand emerged for the platform to adapt to different models of operation, and the changing business needs, which Centili was able to accommodate smoothly. 

The technology behind transactions occurring on mobile subscriptions is highly specialized and is usually sourced through expert tech companies. With its decade-long experience in processing telco micropayments, Centili was able to implement not only the technical platform for NOS but also a set of business processes and practices around carrier billing transactions, needed for the business to thrive.

cGate (now rebranded as Centili Maestro) is a fully-featured carrier billing platform designed to be used by a telecom company. It is a collection of tools and technologies built by the Centili engineers, constantly upgraded with new features and capabilities. Resting on a robust, resilient infrastructure, it draws on Centili’s rich experience in enabling MNOs and merchants around the world for micropayments via telco. It is a holistic technical and business package, a digital business platform for the ecosystem orchestration, monetization, and management.

Centili Maestro: Flexible and robust DCB platform 

• Software-as-a-Service delivery model

• Smooth integration with existing MNO systems

• Cutting-edge core processing capability

• Payment flow control

• Subscriptions management, blacklisting

• Customizable limit configurations (per day, week, or month, per subscriber)

• Smooth refund management

• Roles and permissions

• Dashboards and analytics for MNO employees

• Self-care portal for mobile subscribers

• Continuous development and upgrades

As a flexible and robust monetization platform, Centili Maestro enables companies to create automated or custom reports based on different parameters needed by their stakeholders: finance, support, business, customer care. With easy-to-access dashboards, stakeholders can log in, view and analyze any data set of their interest. For NOS this was an important move towards an easier way of tracking and analyzing carrier billing transactions, as the data became available from a single source, and presented in relevant ways.

Centili provides full support on transactions that are going through its system. If anything is out of place, the issue is brought to the immediate attention of Centili support, fast to resolve any issues. NOS customer care team uses new dashboards to look up transactions, subscribers, and customer journey details. There they can trigger actions like opt-out and refund as soon as the customer asks, which means delays are reduced and subscribers' requests can be resolved immediately. And with a self-care portal easily available, each NOS subscriber can track their spending, and easily understand and manage charges on their NOS subscription. By the end of the project implementation, all relevant information on subscriber billing for apps and similar services became fully visible via the Centili dashboard for more than two thousand NOS employees.