Slaven Živković: Unified Recharging Platform

Antecna is proud to announce the completion of the development project and the commercial launch of the Unified Recharging Platform as a joint project implemented with Mtel to provide a new solution for recharging of Mtel prepaid customers.

As a technological leader in the field of information and telecommunication technologies and as the leading telecommunication operator on the BiH market, Mtel generates a large part of its revenues from mobile and landline prepaid users, with a direct inflow of funds through top-ups of its users' accounts. Until now, Mtel has been recharging prepaid customer accounts through two top-up channels: electronic top-ups with direct user payments at POS terminals and voucher top-ups by purchasing prepaid vouchers by users. These two top-up channels also included two technically separate top-up systems from different vendors and each with separate operating costs as well as separate technical maintenance procedures. Therefore, it was not possible to integrate these systems into a single platform.

The idea of starting the project, and thus the goal of the project, was to reduce the existing operating costs with minimal CAPEX investments for the future "convergent" platform, ie to unify the existing systems for recharging into one platform. Mtel has recognised Antecna as a reliable partner from previous joint projects, and by jointly investing material resources and professional skills, they have created a new Unified Recharging solution, as a convergent solution for recharging of prepaid users, that combines both existing recharge channels into a single system which enables not only existing functionalities and reduce OPEX operating costs, but also to respond to future challenges in the form of protection of users' personal data during electronic recharging.

Antecna’s Unified Recharging Platform is implemented as a platform consisting of two key modules, one for voucher top-up - Voucher Recharging Module, and the other for direct electronic top-ups - Direct Recharging Module, which are combined to provide the best user experience and facilitate the management of the system itself.

These modules are designed to completely replace the existing TopUp and eVoucher systems in Mtel.

The newly created functionality of selling prepaid vouchers at POS terminals can be especially emphasised, which will enable users to get the option of recharging at the terminal without having to leave their phone number to the seller, which will meet GDPR regulations in the future. This functionality was not possible without integrating both top-up channels into a single system.

The platform includes an advanced user interface with the main menu for easy navigation, advanced search, and key information about user updates, with the possibility of advanced reporting and financial clearing with distributors and processors of electronic updates. Also, work with several voucher printing centres is supported, while end-to-end data encryption is provided.

All these functionalities are supported for working with multiple virtual telecom operators - MVNOs, with flexible customisation and configuration depending on the needs of the virtual operators themselves.

The latest technologies were used for the project in all phases of project development and construction, which include Oracle database, WSO2 Enterprise Integrator, NGINGX web servers, and Webix graphical user interfaces. As reliability is extremely important because even the minor downtime of such a platform represents significant financial losses, the platform is implemented as a geo-redundant solution with installed hardware in two locations, with continuous replication of data from primary to geo-redundant location and at any time the switchover can be performed to another location, that guarantees the continuity of work even in the event of accidents or natural disasters.

The system required significant experience from our network engineers as well. The project also included the delivery and implementation of HP server infrastructure and Cisco network equipment. The system is physically implemented at two locations (Banja Luka and Bijeljina) with realised geo-redundancy. The primary site is in Banja Luka and represents a superbly designed, completely redundant system, both at the network and service level. The disaster recovery site is located in Bijeljina. The system is monitored via separate software that forwards all information to the Mtel NOC. System monitoring is realised at the hardware and service level. The databases are Oracle, and replication is performed through specially configured and customised software.

The preparation of the project and the analysis of existing solutions started at the beginning of 2020, and due to the appearance of the Corona virus, all activities were moved to the second half of the same year, after which a detailed specification of the project is created and launched.

The development of the Unified Recharging Platform took a year, everything was done according to SCRUM methodology. The Antecna team consisted of Product Owner, SCRUM Masters, seven to fifteen software developers depending on the stages of development and the constant engagement of two QA engineers.

After completing all project activities and thorough testing of the complete system for several months, we have further improved and automated the operation of the platform. We are pleased to see that our "code" now successfully and securely serves more than 1,100,000 prepaid users in the mtel network through all available top-up channels: USSD, DTMF, Customer Care, POS terminals, web app, mGo app, IPTV platform…

THANK YOU MTEL, WE ENJOYED OUR RIDE TOGETHER!!!

Written by

URP Project Manager Slaven Živković, dipl.el.ing