SunTec Business Solutions, global provider of Relationship-based Pricing and centralized billing software, today announced that it has entered into a partnership with South Africa’s, Tellumat, to offer an innovative billing solution for small and start-up service providers in the southern states of the African continent.

Through this partnership, SunTec and Tellumat plan to set up a billing bureau – a hosted billing solution – that will allow several new entrants telecom providers into the market, enable them to lower the barrier and offer sustainable services to networks that own only a few subscribers. SunTec will provide the technology that can be configured to meet all user solution requirements. The billing bureau covers not only the current requirements of telecom operators, but is also adaptable to the new service requirements being introduced like IPTV, WiMAX and convergent billing for different services on a single bill.

“We are very happy to be partnering with Tellumat to set up this billing bureau. This strategic alliance has opened for SunTec, the doors to South Africa’s billing market. We consider establishing this billing bureau as a great opportunity to showcase the capability of our product, for our clients and prospects, in this continent,” said SunTec CEO K Nanda Kumar.

Tellumat’s Geoff Carey said: “Billing system is very expensive for networks with fewer than about 100,000 subscribers and has been a barrier to new entrants in the market such as the under-serviced area licensees, many of who have been struggling to create viable businesses based on much lower subscriber numbers. With this affordable and flexible hosted billing solution, we hope to help new entrants into the market. Thus, increased competition will lead to better, more diverse services and lower prices for all.”