SBJ Buzz

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Gabriel to offer virtual billing service|ret||ret||tab|

Gabriel Communications Inc. is getting ready to roll out a new, Web-based billing program for its telecommunications services, according to Rich Sikora, Gabriel's director of product services.|ret||ret||tab|

Customers will be able to log on to a secure site on the Web an extranet under password protection. There they can view their bills, including detailed charges, in real time. |ret||ret||tab|

Gabriel's customers will be able to get copies of their bills or print them out, and they can also export specific information, such as long-distance usage, in an Excel spreadsheet format, Sikora said.|ret||ret||tab|

Development of the Web-based bill began late last year, and the prototype bill was produced in December. |ret||ret||tab|

"We had recognized that most of our smaller business customers have the need to basically cut down on the amount of paperwork they do in the course of a day to focus on their core business," Sikora said. "By providing our bills on the Internet, we allow them to do that."|ret||ret||tab|

The service will be available to customers at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second, he added. |ret||ret||tab|

"We think that, in the future, most of our customers will prefer receiving their bill over the Web as opposed to receiving a paper bill," Sikora said. "I wouldn't be surprised if, by the end of the year, most of our customers opted for Web-based billing."|ret||ret||tab|

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E-commerce response surprises Airlink|ret||ret||tab|

Airlink Communications Inc. has gone global via its e-commerce site, |ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|www.airlinkcommunications.com,|ret||ret||tab|

and no one has been more surprised by the subsequent response than Airlink President Randy Ruggeri. |ret||ret||tab|

"We are getting calls from all over the world, and it is absolutely nuts," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

While that's the kind of reaction businesses want from their Web presence, for Airlink it was, well, sort of an accident, Ruggeri said.|ret||ret||tab|

The company, which specializes in wireless communications via cell phone, satellite phone and pager, has been experiencing growth on the Web services end of its business, including a lot of requests for e-commerce solutions.|ret||ret||tab|

As a result, Ruggeri said, Airlink decided to use its own Web site as an e-commerce test site a working model. "We worked hard the last two months to update our site and design e-commerce solutions as an example for customers," he said. |ret||ret||tab|

Shortly thereafter, people from all over the country began signing up online for Airlink wireless services even though the site's initial purpose was to sell cellular accessories.|ret||ret||tab|

According to Ruggeri, keywords and search engines are the secret. "You've got to make sure you get top listing on these search engines so people find you." |ret||ret||tab|

There are several ways to do that, he added. "There's software packages that allow you to register with 2,700 search engines at one time, or you can go in to each search engine and do it manually." Then there's ongoing maintenance. "You have to register weekly and monthly with some search engines, and your site must be constructed properly to allow these search engines to index your site," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

The upshot of all this is "if you go to Yahoo! and type in satellite phone service,' our company comes up as No. 1," Ruggeri said, and the same thing happens on AOL.[[In-content Ad]]