TMCnews Featured Article

Whether it is a telecom company, wireless operator or VoIP service provider, every one of them has a tough task of accurately calculating and billing taxes for every minute of phone time for thousands of customers living in every city, county and state jurisdiction imaginable. Complying correctly with the law seems like an impossible task.

To see how a company like BillSoft is addressing these issues, TMC’s (News - Alert) Executive Editor Erin Harrison caught up BillSoft’s founder, Tim Lopatofsky (News - Alert), at the recent ITEXPO West 2010 in Los Angeles, Calif. Lopatofsky explained why voice service providers have been coming to BillSoft (News - Alert) for help. In fact, during 2010, BillSoft inked some new agreements with voice service providers.

Lopatofsky explained that when voice started occurring as a new business opportunity, there was a lot of speculation whether it was taxed enough, and whether it was a messaging service or a data service. “Our attorneys in the tax research department were watching different arguments going on with FCC (News - Alert),” said Lopatofsky. “As we saw this new service, we quickly started addressing it in our tax research department very early on. Hence, from the beginning we addressed the situation from tax perspective, which is our core strength. By staying on top of these developments, we were able to help our clients in that business.”

Despite gloomy economic predictions, BillSoft seems to be having a solid year. The company added 40 new contracts in the first nine months of the year. Harrison wanted to know what is so special about BillSoft that has enabled the company to grow customer base this year. The founder attributed this success to “the capability of its products and how well they perform.” We offer high level of customer service and support. We have learnt that listening to customers problems and issues and finding ways of addressing and solving them has contributed to this success.”

When asked to describe some new and exciting products for 2011, Lopatofsky promptly pointed to compliance filing solution EZfile, which the company started about five years ago and is the fastest segment of the company’s business today. Now it is being refurbished with lot more features to be introduced as a standard product. It is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2011.

 The executive editor then moved into white space to see if BillSoft had plans to assist wireless operators exploiting the new FCC spectrum. In short, Lopatofsky said that BillSoft was there to help new products and services and solve their tax ramifications.

Currently, net neutrality is a hot topic. Hence, the executive editor was keen to know if BillSoft had any concern about net neutrality. To that, Lopatofsky’s answer was that FCC has a difficult path ahead. “There are some large and powerful parties on both sides of the issue and it is going to be difficult for FCC to come out with a fair solution that treats all parties well and all parties are satisfied,” said Lopatofsky. “It is important for growth that there is neutrality out there. We hope that it stays open and remains open.”