kawaii:

zaptor:

Demeter:That would be mainly because any time we change something that might affect the way services are billed, no matter how minor, people cry rivers of tears. We would have merged everything together years ago if it were possible or simple.

This.

For those who have experience with Enterprise level real-time billing systems, they are anything but trivial. This is just the front end operational side, let alone the back end (which typically comprises several disparate middle-ware services, feeding heavy duty database instances).
Even when two companies merge, who both use the same exact billing vendor there are significant issues in customer/subscription migration.

Although, billing protocols (like Diameter) exist for standardisation of inter-entity communication it doesn't saying anything about how each entity is implemented or how data is stored.

It is not easy.

It is easy if you did what I suggested - a piece by piece migration. All new customers go into the new system, all customers re-signing up go into the new system, any customers ringing up to change their payment move them over to the new system etc. A piece by piece migration to the point that there is a handful left over to sort out. It is easy if you have a plan in place and don't try to do it over night but the problem is that there is no plan at all meaning it is made harder than it needs to be.

Unregistered: OMG!?! I just discovered the deal I thought the retention staff had agreed to is not the same. It looks like I will now be spending more not less AND they locked me into a 12month contract! If this is how they treat a 5yr+ (Off-contract) customer, no wonder the FB page is so depressing. This has thrown me over the edge so that I'm starting to think the staff are actually trained to rip off customers...I now understand why so many people say such things. Very disappointing. Maybe it's time to jump ship before they...