Remember when cellular became a reality? Companies rushed to build infrastructures and competed for coverage, trying to claim their share of the wide-open new market.

Now you need a different strategy to stay ahead. Along with attracting first-time business and retaining your own customers, you must convince everyone else that you can offer more:

Improved network performance
Enhanced on-line customer service
Reduced operating costs

The new generation of market drivers has inspired a variety of applications, and each needs access to system data to increase your performance and value to subscribers.

Northern Telecom and Hewlett-Packard have joined forces to offer you the ultimate solution:

The MTS Data System uses a centralized SYBASE relational database management system to simultaneously collect billing and maintenance data from multiple switches.

Supporting both voice and data applications, the MDS streamlines the real-time transfer of billing information, replacing the tangle of individual connections with a single, common applications platform, CAPP (Cellular Application Performance Platform).

For applications requiring maintenance data, the MDS provides general access to information via regularly scheduled dump or as an individual query response from multiple switches, again supporting both voice and data applications.

You can extend your LAN environment to include customer service personnel, the network management group, the billing center—whoever needs access to your network.

And when customers call with questions or concerns, you can call up online the data you need when you need it most: while your customer is waiting.

• Send data electronically—eliminate loading and shipping of tapes
• On-line billing access for faster problem response
• Simultaneously send billing stream to multiple applications
• Reduce software costs
• Minimize application upgrades after BCS loads—Northern Telecom updates the MDS instead
• Reduce facilities costs
• Centralize your maintenance—consolidate multiple application interfaces in one MIS room
• Reduce hardware—one MDS supports as many as eight switches

Without the MDS
To access system information, each application must connect to the switch through its proprietary interface link. The more applications, the greater the confusion of connections.

With Northern Telecom's MDS
A common interface does the juggling for you, collecting billing and operational data for both voice and data networks through a single, common platform.

Entertain this thought:

A variety of applications can help you increase revenue, improve service, reduce operating costs and maintain subscribers...

Credit Limit Billing Increases your revenue opportunities by monitoring customer spending and blocking credit when threshold is exceeded.	Rental Billing Provides hotels and rental agencies with up-to-the-minute billing information at customer check-out. Opens new vertical markets.
On-line Customer Problem Resolution Enables on-the-spot response to customer inquiries and complaints by accessing billing data in real time. Improves service and customer retention.	Roamer Billing Exchange Enables faster billing for increased cash flow through electronic exchange of roamer records with other markets.
Fraud Prevention Tracks normal calling patterns and identifies possible fraud using real-time billing data. Cuts operating costs by minimizing network resources available to fraudulent callers while maintaining full access to paying customers.	Network Management Finds and corrects areas with poor coverage using general access to maintenance information. Also detects inefficient network operations, allowing you to re-allocate resources and reduce your operating costs.

...but when you're limited to one application at a time, it takes a lot of juggling to access the switch for each request for real-time billing data and maintenance information.

Now Northern Telecom's MTS Data System consolidates network information—both voice and data—from multiple switches, giving you readily available information for your various applications.

All the data you need, when you need it.