GLDS Approved as Billing Provider for NCTC

CARLSBAD, CA – Great Lakes Data Systems (GLDS), which provides billing, subscriber management and provisioning systems for small-to-medium broadband providers worldwide, has been named an approved provider by the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC). NCTC is a programming and hardware purchasing organization for its member companies – nearly 1,000 small-to-medium cable operators throughout the U.S. and its territories. GLDS will also participate in the NCTC Winter Education Conference in Austin, Texas, Feb. 20-21.

“Many independent operator members have long enjoyed the services of Great Lakes Data Systems, and we are thrilled to once again establish a relationship with GLDS for the benefit of all NCTC members,” says Doug Hull, senior director of NCTC.

GLDS offers “tier one” features at rates that average 50 percent less than the large service bureaus, according to the company’s president, Garrick Russell. It was the first to enable smaller operators to cost-efficiently bill and manage converged services, including digital video, IPTV and Internet, and has partnered with more than 22 industry voice vendors on more than 70 VoIP deployments. GLDS was also the first to help monetize IP-based VoD/OTT services, a project first revealed at the 2011 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

At the upcoming NCTC Winter Education Conference, GLDS plans to demonstrate its new workforce management platform, WinForce tech. A full-featured workforce automation solution, WinForce tech gives small operators an affordable way to move customer management data out to the field, reduce field work calls and speed customer service.

WinForce tech empowers techs with visibility into customer accounts, lets them manage equipment and service delivery, and gives them the ability to troubleshoot installations and even close work orders from the field. Russell says, “It gives operators complete control and monitoring of their workforce and offers tier-one functionality, without the tier-one price.”