DAY 1 8 WISPAMERICA I MARCH 6 - 9, 2023 www.bekabusinessmedia.com Mid America Computer Corporation (MACC), a provider of billing systems to more than 350 ISPs across the United States, delivers solutions to empower its clients to improve the efficiency of their operation and the care they provide their customers. ISPs use MACC’s solutions for their billing, general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventory and point-of-sale needs. A great example of a company using MACC’s billing system to improve its operation is the Nucla-Naturita Telephone Company (NNTC). The family-owned and operated company was founded in 1946 in Nucla, Colo., to provide telephone service to its community. Over its 77 years in business, NNTC expanded its service territory to seven additional Colorado communities and now provides internet access using wired and wireless technologies. The company also sells mobile phones and calling plans from its office. Darla Joseph, NNTC’s Assistant Manager and Vice President, said, “MACC has been a very positive change for our company. We swapped over to MACC in 2019 and it was such a good decision.” A key boost to NNTC’s efficiency has been its use of MACC’s eBill, an online bill payment solution, and the increased speed with which the company can accept customer payments. “This has been a timesaver for NNTC as we can answer calls, run a customer’s credit card, and not have to wait for the credit card machine to be vacant,” Joseph said. Another driver of efficiency for NNTC has been its use of MACC’s solution for point-ofsale and inventory. MACC’s solution tracks the number of items available along with their associated values. This crucial inventory information is then tied directly to a company’s general ledger account balance. Barcode scanning of items is an option, and this is a feature NNTC uses to streamline the selling of wireless equipment. “Using point-of-sale has eliminated the need to write the prices on each of the accessories,” Joseph said. “We are able to print out labels with the barcode to attach to each item and then we can scan it to let the customer know the cost.” As being able to meet regulatory reporting requirements, including the BDC, is a crucial task for ISPs, MACC’s solution also meets this need. “We have a better handle on our payments with MACC and more confidence in our reporting process to meet all of the necessary requirements,” Joseph said. MACC delivers the outstanding support its clients deserve with a unique three-tiered approach to customer care. This approach ensures clients always have access to a knowledgeable member of the MACC Team if assistance is needed. “I must add the customer service and support with MACC has far exceeded our expectations,” Joseph said. “MACC’s support team is always friendly and ready to help!” To learn more about MACC and how it can help with your billing, accounting and inventory needs, stop by booth 627 and visit with Steve Apple. Be sure to ask for a live demonstration of MACC Mobile, which gives your team in the field the ability to manage inventory using their smart phone. m As WISPs continue to grow and sign-up new subscribers, they may be surprised by an unplanned for expense: the cost of IPv4 addresses. Why are IPv4 addresses so expensive? It’s simple supply and demand. The number of IPv4 addresses is capped and no more are being created. So, the supply is limited. That’s not the same with demand. As the number of internet connected devices increases, so does the demand for IPv4 addresses. And higher demand means higher prices. Let’s Do the Math The cost of most IPv4 addresses today are between $40 to $55 dol lars. So, let’s assume a WISP needs 1,000 IPv4 addresses at an average cost of $50; that’s a total cost of $50,000. If that same provider needs 5,000 IPv4 addresses, that’s $250,000. For 10,000 IPv4 addresses, the cost would be $500,000. With the price of IPv4 addresses increasing and WISPs not having enough resources to make the complex, time-consuming and expensive transition to IPv6, what options do they have? Overcoming High Costs One option is carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT). The main goal of Network Address Translation (NAT) is to save public addresses. By sharing a public IP address among many private IP addresses, NAT limits the number of public IP addresses an organization must use, conserving its IPv4 addresses. Of course, this also reduces costs. And cost savings have been the main driver behind the growth of CGNAT. But Do I Really Need CGNAT? It all depends on your current pool of IPv4 addresses and your future growth plans. How many new subscribers do you plan to add in the next three years? In the next five years? If you have enough IPv4 addresses to meet your future growth plans, you’re probably fine. If you don’t have enough IPv4 addresses to meet future growth, then CGNAT can help. For the growing number of WISPs that have decided to deploy CGNAT, the question becomes, which CGNAT solution should I choose? Traditional CGNAT vendors pride themselves on having advanced features. However, advanced features usually come with advanced (or high) prices. This may not be a problem for large carriers with large budgets. Unlike large carriers, local and regional WISPs may prefer a scalable, cost-effective CGNAT solution. An Affordable CGNAT netElastic CGNAT is a cost-effective alternative. Traditional CGNAT solutions run on expensive proprietary hardware. In contrast, netElastic CGNAT runs on commodity x86 servers. As a result, WISPs have saved up to 80 percent by switching to netElastic. netElastic’s high-performance virtual router technology is at the heart of its CGNAT, including a scalable software architecture that delivers a highlevel of translation performance. Using DPDK and advanced packet processing, netElastic CGNAT can achieve near line-rate throughput on 10G, 25G, 40G, and 100G interfaces. It’s also highly scalable (scales by cores) and can deliver performance well over 360 Gbps per server. netElastic also supports up to 40,000 subscribers and 6 million NAT sessions. m To learn more, visit netElastic at booth 216 on the WISPAMERICA show floor or visit www.netelastic.com Colorado ISP Switches to MACC’s Billing System Use CGNAT to Grow Subscribers, Shrink IPv4 Costs
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