>Magister Scientiae - MSc / This thesis deals with the design of a business model for rural telephony based on a wireless mesh network for a rural community, the Mankosi community, located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Its aim is to understand the social, economic and technical issues that are involved in the adoption of information and communication technologies for development and how they relates to trust in e-services. Externally funded projects tend to be expensive and are often unsustainable once the external funding ceases. The cost of a mesh network (once implemented) is almost negligible, apart from its maintenance. The pillars of the project are sustainability and community ownership, and the aim was to design the wireless mesh network, provide telephony service to the community and use solar power to charge mobile phones. The community leaders of Mankosi indicated that they do not want the service to be completely free, but would charge a small fee for each call in order to generate the funds needed for the maintenance of the system. In order to do so, a prototype billing system was configured and adapted to the needs and expectations of the community. The principles and steps of soft systems methodology were used to manage the research process of this case study. This methodology was a powerful tool to carry out the research and address the research problem in a participative way with the stakeholders. The participatory design process used in the design phase of the project had the added advantage that the community understood the purpose of the network, and since they contributed to its design, they felt that they owned it and could trust its billing system. A further benefit was that a core group of participants were committed to the project and felt that the overall quality of community members' lives would be improved by it and similar projects. The process contributed to the personal development of the participants by giving the community a voice and sense of power – the ability to change things – and it vastly expanded community members’ vision of what they are capable of. It was found that the current means of communication, i.e. using mobile phones, is expensive for local users in relation to their average income. The proposed billing system – designed with the help of the community – will be trusted by the community and provide Mankosi with a low-cost communication system by making use of the existing experimental mesh network. The community will be able to sustain their network with the income generated. The network will in future provide access to the Internet and will be able to handle breakout calls to external networks.

Incorrect and inaccurate municipal billing system poses a challenge in the local government system in South Africa. The communities in the various municipalities were dissatisfied with the incorrect and inaccurate municipal bills that were being issued. Consequently public confidence in terms of the billing system dwindled, communities were unwilling to pay for the bills issued and as such debt accumulated and the municipalities could not recover the debt. The research question, therefore, is that the municipal bills sent to customers were incorrect or inaccurate and revenue was lost. Public confidence with regard to municipal billings system declined and communities were unwilling to pay for the incorrect or inaccurate bills issued. Debts accumulated and seemingly the municipal billing system had an impact on revenue collection in selected South African cities. There is currently no scientific research which has been conducted at academic level to determine the core problem as reported in newspapers, public domain and municipal areas to share the information nationally and internationally regarding the state of municipal billing system, debt and revenue management challenges. The research suggests that in order to improve the efficiency of the collection of service charges, the billing and collection systems must be decentralised, accessible to the consumer, matched with the income cycle and paying capacity of the consumer. The study covers an analysis of the municipal billing system and revenue collection in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and suggests measures for financial sustainability in the three cities. The study used both the qualitative case study and the quantitative approach to effectively collect and analyse the data needed. The research problem which informs this study is incorrect, inaccurate municipal bills sent to customers and lost revenue. The result of incorrect and inaccurate bills was that public confidence declined and communities protested to pay for the incorrect, inaccurate bills issued and thus debt accumulated. In examining this problem, the research begins with a description of the context of empirical analysis, of the local government system, municipal billing system and revenue collection in South Africa. The study analysed profound issues regarding local governance systems namely: legislation, policies, procedures, public administration and its environmental factors, spheres of government, financial administration and standards, intergovernmental relations functions, municipal structure and functions, elements of municipal billing systems, sources of revenue, municipal billing systems challenges in the three metropolitan municipalities, debts accumulation and deficiency in municipal billing systems and information technology. The study recommends the need for a sound municipal billing and collection system essentially regarding the taxes levied and collected by these metropolitan municipalities. A sound municipal billing system should be configured with a short turnaround strategy to serve demand notices and the collection of dues from individual customers, thereby enabling efficient cash recycling. An efficient billing system is essential for taxes levied by municipalities and their collection from consumers. The study also provides an opportunity for further academic research in the field of municipal billing systems and revenue collection. Hopefully, this study will become a catalyst for future research, policy alternatives and planning for local government and academic institutions nationally and internationally regarding the municipal billing system and revenue collection fields. / Dissertation (MAdmin)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / School of Public Management and Administration / unrestricted

近年來，電信業已由寡占走向了完全競爭市場，伴隨著消費者意識的抬頭，有限的市場大餅，更侷限了用戶數的大躍進，因此各家電信營運商無不卯足全力，專注在提供吸引消費者的產品、資費方案、以及ARPU（Average-Revenue-Per-User）的提昇…等議題上。企業要如何面對競爭慘烈的市場？如何保持內部流程的彈性去因應變化？基於上述事項，如何運用資訊科技來達到企業的目標就更加重要了，而EAI 的功能，提供了企業對應用系統的整合，維持流程的彈性應用，更進而協助企業降低整合風險、節省資訊軟體的開發與維護成本、強化供應商的合作關係，進而產生對企業的效益。 本研究使用個案研討的方式，選定幾項關鍵流程進行深度分析，針對電信業在營運系統上整合的議題作探討，並說明企業整合應用軟體導入所帶來的效益。對於電信產業而言，客戶關係管理系統、帳務系統、開通系統、加值服務應用平台系統…等是整合的開端，亦是重點之所在。經由EAI軟體的導入，提供營運應用系統之間資訊的同步，也相對的提供決策人員反應快速的資訊。 電信業者在系統建置中，如何有效運用企業整合軟體之特性來整合各異質性平台應用系統，以達到資訊的整合，並藉由資訊的及時傳遞提供各不同應用系統使用者一致的資訊，進而提高資訊的可用度及客服人員及門市人員對客戶的服務，增加企業的競爭力。 / Telco has already been moving toward perfect competitive market since last decade. Meanwhile, along with the ideology of consumers that dominates the trend and momentum of open market. It also blocked the growth rate of subscribers in domestic market. Under such circumstance, all Operators are fully concentrating on value-added product, tariff, rate plan…and so on, to attract consumers so that Operators are able to increase the ARPU (Average-Revenue-per-User). How to face the severe competitive market? How to maintain the flexibility of internal process to adopt the drastic changing market？ Based upon above mentioned issues, it is very important to use information technology to approach this target. Nevertheless, the functionality of EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) offers an all-in-one solution and integration to application system. Still, it also maintains the flexibility of process flow. Further more, it reduces the risk of enterprise integration and saves cost in terms of implementation and maintenance. On the other hands, EAI is not only to enhance the relationship of suppliers but also generate the synergy of enterprise. The purpose of this theme is to deeply analyze the critical process inside company. Besides, it also points out that how to use EAI in Telco field for the purpose of gaining benefit to Operator. Telco’s IT system includes CRM (Customer relationship management), Billing system, Provision, and the platform of value-added service and application. After installing EAI, it is able to offer the synchronization among all application system and capable to expedite the response time of decision makers. In addition, it is very important to use EAI to integrate the different application platform. After that, EAI is able to consolidation all necessary information and deliver all users with same information just in time. Customer Service Division and Chain Store could transfer this power to secure better services to consumers then enlarge the competition of enterprise.