2012-3Q (v002): SAND: Overage T&C Agreement Page

A new feature has been added to SIMPLer that enables operators to display an "Overage T&C Agreement" page to customers that have been disconnected by the SAND (traffic) process as a result of exceeding their monthly CAP. A customer will have the choice whether they wants to agree to Overage T&C and be automatically billed for the Overage use going forward (indefinately or until the end of the current month) or they may choose to deny the terms and be disconnected until next month.

The "Overage T&C Agreement" page can be enabled from "Modify Operator Details" page. Under the "End User Portal Settings" section there is a set of "Overage Agreement Page" settings (see the Screenshot below) that can be used to enable this feature.

Settings are:

    • Overage Agreement Page: this setting enables / disables the feature. When disabled - the Overage Agreement page will display: "This page is disabled" message and will not allow the customer to reconnect his account. The feature is DISABLED by default.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Customer not found Message: In this text area field, operators can define the notification customers will see in case the Overage Agreement page could not automatically tied to the customers connection (based on IP address or MAC address passed by the Redirection link) to any customer account in the system that has been posted/disabled by the SAND due to reaching the CAP. The message should say that the customers connection is disabled and that they can either login to EUP using the link above (to pay off their invoices etc) or they should call the operator's support team to get this issue resolved. Note that usage of HTML is recommended for formatting the message.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Terms & Conditions: In this text area field, operators can define the terms & conditions for the automated overage billing that will be displayed to each customer posted/disabled by SAND system (due to reaching the CAP) whose connection has been cross-referenced to an existing account in the SIMPLer system. The terms and conditions should be devised by the operator. The customer will be presented with a choice to either Accept or Deny the T&C and effectively either get their account reconnected with an Overage product being added to the account for automated billing or remain disconnected until next month and the CAP usage is reset. Note that usage of HTML is recommended for formatting the message.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Terms Accepted Page: In this text area, operators can define the notification that will be displayed to the customer if they choose to Accept the Terms & Conditions. The message should state that an account has been reconnected and will come back live within the few next minutes (as it may take a minute or so to reconnect the account). Note that usage of HTML is recommended for formatting the message to suit the operators needs.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Terms Denied Page: In this text area operator can define the notification that will be displayed to the customer if he chooses to Deny the Terms & Conditions. The message should say that an account will remain disconnected till either customer chooses to accept T&C or till the next month comes and the CAP usage is being reset. Note that usage of HTML is recommended for formatting the message.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Overage Product ID: in this field, operator should specify an ID of a product that should be added to the customers account if he/she decides to Accept the T&C. This product should be set as an Overage product under SIMPLer. The ID should be in the numeric format - it can be decipehered from the "modify product" page URL link - where it is the number after the 'productId='.

    • Overage Agreement Page - Limit Overage to 1 Month: by default, the Overage product is added to the customer's account indefinately (so the customer needs to agree to the T&C only once. Using this field, operator can limit the Overage product added only to the current month. If this option is used, the customer will have to agree to the T&C each month he/she goes over the CAP within.

The "Overage Agreement T&C Page" can be found under the following link:

http://[SERVERNAME]/CustomerPortal/overageAgreement.pl?operator=[OPERATORNAME]

or on some servers under

http://[SERVERNAME]/CP/overageAgreement.pl?operator=[OPERATORNAME]

If accessed directly - the "Customer not found" page will be displayed as the page will not be able to cross-reference the connection to a customer's account unless set as a Redirect page on the WIB-C. The "Overage Agreement T&C Page" is designed as a Redirect page from the WIB-C client. This can be set under the "Modify Gateway Details" page (Network->Gateway Details in SIMPLer) - see the screenshot below for reference where wib.azotel.com is user as [SERVERNAME].

For all disconnected customers, WIB-C will redirect all HTTP queries to the page specified in the Redirect field (note that the server name should also be specified in the whitelist). In this case, it should be the appropriate "Overage T&C Agreement" page. While redirecting - WIB-C will update the link with some additional information that will be used to cross-reference to the actual customer account in SIMPLer:

    • ipaddress - this attribute will contain the IP address WIB-C sees the HTTP request coming from

    • macaddress - this attribute will contain the MAC address WIB-C sees the HTTP request packet coming from

    • wibnumber - wib-c will report its number using this attribute

WIB-C will update the URL link automatically - so the effective link will read as follows:

http://[SERVERNAME]/CustomerPortal/overageAgreement.pl?operator=[OPERATORNAME]&ipaddress=[SOMEIPADDRESS]&macaddress=[SOMEMACADDRESS]&wibnumber=[SOMEWIBNUMBER]

Note that this will all happen automatically for disconnected customers once the HTTP Redirection is specified for the WIB-C.

A sample "Overage T&C Page" presented for a SAND disconnected as a result of reaching a CAP customer can appear as in the screenshot below:

The customer can either choose to Accept the Terms & Conditions where they will be:

    1. Added an Overage product (as specified in the Overage Agreement Page - Overage Product ID under "Modify Operator Details" page)

    2. Reconnected

    3. Presented with a similar page to the screenshot below (content can be specified under "Modify Operator Details" page as described earlier in this manual)

Or the customer can choose to Deny the Terms & Conditions where they will:

    1. remain disconnected until the next month and the CAP usage will be cleared and the account reconnected

    2. Presented with a similar page to the screenshot below (content can be specified under "Modify Operator Details" page as described earlier in this manual)

All customers:

    1. that have been disconnected due to reasons OTHER than breaching their CAP

    2. where the account cannot be cross-referenced to their account using the MAC / IP address

will be presented with the "Customer not found" page similar to the screenshot below (content can be specified under "Modify Operator Details" page as described earlier in this manual). It is important to remember that the customers disconnected due to invoice non-payment will hit this page aswell - so it is advisable that the instructions on this page clearly state that the customers can login using the "Login" link on the top of the page - to get to their account and pay off their invoices - if the operator delivers such services to the customers via the End User Portal.

Note that this page displays the IP / MAC / Gateway details if they were passed by the WIB-C. This information might be very useful for the support team to debug / find the customers account in the system / network.

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