INTERVIEW
www.comms-dealer.com
Union Street on WLR3
The introduction of WLR3 by Openreach aims to
level the playing field between comms providers
(CPs) and BT Retail. According to Tony Cook,
a Director at Union Street Technologies, CPs
should waste no time in getting on board.
W
LR3 allows CPs to either develop their own
to show their gateway or partner with a systems
customers that integrator that can provide a
they are in control solution. We have developed our
of service provisioning and not WLR3 Portal Solution to integrate
dependent on BT, because service fully with the Union Street aBillity
orders to Openreach are managed billing platform, giving significant
directly online and in real time. business benefits,” Cook stated.
“CPs can now order services, see
site information, book engineer As Union Street’s WLR3 uses the
appointments, reserve numbers same user interface and database
and manage faults with access as the billing platform, there is a
to the same features as BT Retail, single entry point for all provisioning
and hence can enhance the and billing requirements,
service offering and SLAs that they significantly reducing the volume
can provide to their customers,” of data entry and reducing errors
said Cook. “This provides some across the whole process. Because
significant benefits. With WLR3 the WLR3 process starts within
no order forecasts are required, the billing platform, Union Street
so all orders have equal priority. has been able to synchronise
Openreach engineer appointments the provision of new services
can be booked online while with the addition of the service
the customer is on the phone to charges to the client accounts.
Tony Cook
agree the date. Appointments
can also be re-booked or “Most CPs on a monthly basis have As a result, CPs have reported a assurance using the Union
cancelled using direct access to the task of manually reconciling the big reduction in the time taken Street integrated solution verses
Openreach engineer workbooks.” BT service charges to ensure that to process orders, compared to the old WLR2 way of doing it
everything is correctly onward billed the old way of processing orders via the EcoRepair portal, with
Cook highlighted that if a new to their customers,” commented via the BT gateway (WLR2). separate data entry into the
line is being provisioned the Cook. “It can be easy to make billing platform. He concluded
number can be selected and mistakes that result in miss-billing. According to Cook, this time that the integrated WLR3 solution
agreed with the customer. Fault Union Street’s WLR3 solution will saving was confirmed at a saved them 60 per cent of the
testing can be done online with automatically add the appropriate recent BT organised WLR3 ‘Real time on each transaction.
the customer on the phone charges at the point of provisioning Deal’ Roadshow event in the
and CPs can pre-authorise and it uses the WLR3 messages to London BT Tower. Two of Union Cook commented: “The Union
charging limits for Openreach trigger the automatic update of Street’s customers were selected Street WLR3 Portal Solution can be
engineer time related billing work. the charging start dates. The result by BT as case studies for WLR3 used with other billing platforms,
“CPs with reseller partners can is a big saving of time and equally – 2 Circles Communications and but will not provide the same
devolve fault management to importantly, a reduction in errors, HighNet. Andy Reid from 2 Circles level of system integration and
the reseller, and WLR3 also offers miss-billing and revenue loss. Union Communications presented an a single point for data entry.
the potential to provide resellers Street has included additional independent study his company At the moment there is some
with white label and managed validation so that it is almost had conducted to measure complacency in the CP community
service solutions,” added Cook. impossible to place an invalid order.” the speed of processing WLR3 about moving to WLR3. But
All this is a great advance and Openreach has a target of ending
brings enormous potential the establishment of new CPs onto
benefits to CPs. But to utilise
WLR3 offers the potential to
WLR2 soon and the complete
WLR3, CPs must interface with
provide resellers with white
withdrawal of WLR2 probably by
the BT Openreach Equivalence the end of the decade. Putting off
Management Platform (EMP).
label and managed service solutions
the move to WLR3 is really not a
“This means that CPs will need sensible option.”
n
38 COMMS DEALER MAY 2009 www.comms-dealer.com
38 PG union_street.indd 1 24/4/09 09:31:19
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56