OBS/EBS

Terms and Conditions

 

1.     Introduction

In terms of the Memorandum of Agreement already concluded between the parties, the customer will adhere to the OBS terms and conditions below.

2.     General Administrative Specifications, Procedures and Regulations

 

2.1        The customer shall continue to be bound by the Terms and Conditions of the Memorandum of Agreement as well as the procedures set out on the Vodacom messaging Portal. In the event of any contradiction between these OBS/EBS terms and conditions and the Memorandum of Agreement and/or Vodacom Messaging Portal, then these terms and conditions shall take precedence. The phrases used in these terms and conditions shall, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, have the same meaning as assigned to them in the Memorandum of Agreement.

 

2.2        OBS will permit a Value added (“VAS”) Service fee to be levied only in respect of those VAS Services that have been requested from and/or delivered to GSM terminal equipment.

 

2.3        Any customer wanting to make use of OBS/EBS shall adhere to Vodacom’s prerequisites (application criteria), including but not limited to the following:

 

2.3.1     No legal judgements shall have been recorded against the customer;

 

2.3.2     The Memorandum of Agreement to which these terms and conditions are attached must have been signed and executed by the customer;

 

2.3.3     The customer must never have been declared insolvent;

 

2.3.5     Vodacom reserves the right to view the results of an annual audit.  Should an annual audit not be made available, Vodacom shall be entitled to request a financial audit to be done at the             cost of the customer;

 

2.3.6     All monies due, owing and payable to Vodacom by the customer at date of application must be settled in full;

 

2.3.7     The customer has to be connected to Vodacom’s network with a Direct Link, VPN (IPSEC) via the Internet or VAN;

 

2.3.8     The customer’s application must be connected to Vodacom’s network via a Direct Line, VPN (IPSEC) via the Internet or VAN and also make use of one of Vodacom Internal WASP bearer services;

 

2.3.9     OBS may only be used to bill Commercial Value-Added Services (CVAS);

 

2.3.10.  Any previous complaints received from customers about your services must have been successfully resolved prior to application date;

 

2.3.11   OBS/EBS is a billing mechanism and must be used in conjunction with one of our standard rated bearers;

 

2.3.12   Vodacom may, in their sole and absolute discretion, reject your application to use OBS/EBS.

 

2.4        Proof of delivery of CVAS Services shall be accepted at the point where the CVAS Service is successfully submitted to the relevant Vodacom gateway or platform necessary for delivery to the Service User, e.g. a SMS submitted to the SMSC with confirmation of submission from the SMSC is deemed a successful delivery of a VAS service. The customer shall retain proof of delivery of the VAS Service to the Service User.

 

2.5        A service name needs to be unique per application and case sensitive.

 

2.6        A customer is required to complete a service description with a unique service name for each application applied for via OBS/EBS. The service name on the service description must be the same as applied for on the production OBS/EBS and must only be used for as described within the service description. In the event of the customer using the service name for anything other than what was intended, then Vodacom shall be entitled to immediately suspend the service.

 

2.6.1     The customer is required to use a Standard Rated number and not a Premium Rated number when used in conjunction with OBS. The service number on the service description must be the same as applied for on the production OBS. In the event of the customer changing the service number without notifying Vodacom, then Vodacom shall be entitled to immediately suspend the service.

 

2.7        Incremental billing shall not be permissible. The VAS service fee billed per transaction must be equal to the total price of the service and must be advertised accordingly. The customer will not be allowed to split the full price into various transactions with smaller charges and advertise the smaller charges to the Service Users. Therefore, for example, a R15.00 once-off service should be billed in one transaction at R15.00 and not 3 transactions of R5.00 or a R10.00 per week subscription service should be billed once per week and not billed in five daily transactions of R2.00 each.

 

2.8        Recovery/post-event billing shall not be permissible for Prepaid and Hybrid Service Users.

 

2.9        Advice of charge

 

2.9.1     In this context “Advice of charge” shall mean the prior notification to the Service User of the amount, (incl. VAT) to be charged to his/her bill or deducted from his/her prepaid account in respect of the VAS Service and Bearer fee.

 

2.9.2     The customer shall retain proof of delivery to and acceptance of the Advice of Charge by the Service User.

 

2.9.3      The Advice of charge notification to the Service User may be provided via any of the Vodacom Internal WASP mobile bearer services.

 

2.9.4      The Advice of charge will be billed to the Service User at the Mobile Originating Bearer fee, and to the customer at the Mobile Terminating Bulk fee.

 

2.9.5      The Advice of charge must be delivered to the Service User after it has been determined that the Service User does have sufficient funds available to allow the purchase of the service or content (in the case of a prepaid Service User).

 

2.9.6      If the Service user does not consent to the advice of charge received (i.e. replies that he/she is not willing to pay for the service) then the reserved funds must immediately be made available to the Service User (in the case of a prepaid Service User).

 

2.9.7      If the Service User accepts the advice of charge then the funds will be deducted from the available prepaid account balance.

 

 

2.10      Subscribing for a service

2.10.1    Subscription should not be bundled with content. End users may not be automatically subscribed to a subscription service as a result of a request for any non-subscription content or service.

2.10.2    The instructions for subscribing must be clear on all advertising; the subscriber must be made aware that the service is a subscription service. (The advert must communicate that it’s a subscription service).

 

2.10.3    You are required to adhere to the subscription service rules as defined in the WASPA Advertising Rules published on the WASPA Portal and updated by WASPA from time to time.

 

2.10.4    A customer must respond with an MT detailing the following:

 

·         The name of the service the customer has subscribed to;

·         The price;

·         Your Toll-Free Customer Care number;

·         Type of subscription (daily, weekly, monthly).

 

 

2.11       Reminders

 

2.11.1   A reminder must be sent once every 30 days per service.

 

2.11.2   The reminder SMS must have the following:

 

·         Your company Name;

·         Your Toll-Free Customer Care number;

·         The name of the service;

·         The amount billed;

·         Type of subscription (daily, weekly, monthly).

 

 

2.12      Vodacom’s Online Billing Services system:

 

2.12.1   Zero rated events will not appear on the Service User’s bill. If you do not intend levying a VAS Service fee then it is recommended that Reverse Billing on SMS-MO, without OBS/EBS, be utilised.

 

2.12.2   Requests for subscription-type VAS Services will not be allowed to be “batch -event submissioned”.

 

2.12.3   The customer authorisation request must contain the correct service name and ID as configured in Vodacom’s OBS/EBS system. If there is any discrepancy, such as the incorrect spelling of the service name, the system will not approve the authorisation request. Each service name will link to a Provider ID, Company ID and Company Key.

 

2.12.4   All billing Authorisation Requests submitted to OBS/EBS need to contain an indicator the XML tag ‘ReqType’ as indicated in the Interface Specification which states the start date and time of the subscription service. If this information is not included, the system will not approve the billing authorisation request.

 

2.12.5   Event Billing - The rollback time for a transaction request will be 18 hours i.e. the system will reverse the transaction request, should the transaction request not be completed in 18 hours from when the authorisation request was received by Vodacom’s system. This is based on the delivery of confirmation, provided by the customer.

 

2.12.6   The total request is restricted to a maximum amount of R50.00 (incl. VAT) per event. Should the VAS Service fee (inclusive of the bearer) exceed R50.00 (incl. VAT), it shall be rejected by the system which will only process authorisation requests to or less than the value of R50.00 (incl. VAT).

 

2.13      In the event of the customer using OBS/EBS for any fraudulent purpose or for any other purpose for which it was not intended, then Vodacom shall be entitled to immediately suspend the WASPs right to use OBS/EBS.

 

2.14      Failure to adhere to these Terms & Conditions will lead to Vodacom suspending your connectivity for a period of 6 (six) months.

 

2.15      If you are in breach of these Terms & Conditions for a second time, Vodacom will terminate your OBS/EBS connectivity without prior written notice.

 

2.16      The WASP Customer Care number must be a local South African toll-free number and Operator assistance must be available from 08:00 to 17:00 and thereafter have an access mechanism available (for example: IVR).

 

2.17      These Terms & Conditions are to be read in conjunction with and do not substitute the WASPA Code of Conduct.

 

 

3.   OBS/EB Charges

 

3.1        Transactions will be charged as indicated in our Sales Guide or your quote.

 

3.2        Additional charges are referenced below:

 

Vodacom Pay-out will be calculated as follows:

3.2.1.    Unsuccessful transaction charge

Per unsuccessful transaction <60% (01-59%) - R0.04 (incl VAT)

Per unsuccessful transaction >60% (60-79%) - R0.075 (incl VAT)

Per unsuccessful transaction >80% (80-100%) - R0.10 (incl VAT)

 

 

3.3        An unsuccessful billing transaction is a transaction attempt failing as a result of insufficient funds or subscriber being locked or a transaction being rolled back. These transactions exclude those that are returned with codes 05, 18 or 90, which indicates either system error or system busy.

 

3.4        Customers are encouraged to ensure that applications that communicate with the Billing Systems make intelligent programmatic decisions on whether a subscriber has sufficient funds or not before submitting the authorization request.

 

3.5        All billing queries must be logged to WASP Finance (WASPINVOICE2@vodacom.co.za) within 10 days from receipt of billing from Vodacom, failing which it shall be deemed to have

accepted the correctness of such billing; provided that in the event of any differences between Vodacom’s billing records and the customer’s records, then Vodacom’s billing records will take precedence.

 

 

4.     Interface Specifications

 

The customer will adhere to the Interface Specifications as provided for the service from Vodacom and may be amended by Vodacom from time to time.

 

Vodacom may, in their sole discretion, reject an application to use the service.

 

For further enquiries please contact WASP Support:

 

Office Number:              011 465 6479

E-mail:                           vodacomwasp@vodacom.co.za