The communications industry has been aggressively evolving to be able to rapidly launch, scale and sustain new services. This evolution has serious impact on OSS/BSS as many operators are currently limited to the traditional restrictive methods of pricing, such as price plans by volume, time or flat rate.

Without real-time differentiated rating and charging capabilities, coupled with dynamic CRM, operators are exposed to revenue leakage and are unable to capitalize on the total revenues that IP services bring.

Applying differentiated value-based rating structures, operators can build new data revenue streams that rate based on application, content, subscriber information, time and day or any other static or dynamic demographics.

To summarize, operators need a rating and charging solution that overcomes the following barriers:

• Flat rate price plans that do not personalize plans for different user groups (families, enterprise, residential, group users)
• Revenue leakage from non real-time rating and charging (mediation platforms)
• Capped incremental revenue from traditional voice and messaging services
• No policy control* and inefficient management of network resources

Effective charging and intelligently rating new services in an IP environment is critical for operators to ensure efficient revenue collection. Removing OSS/BSS barriers paves the way for both operators and subscribers to reap the benefits of monetizing and personalizing IP services.

Mobile data and content aware rating and packet inspection allow operators to segment their subscribers and meaningfully work with third-party content providers to maximize revenue potentials through any combination of on and off-net, in real-time or online. This brings new revenue into the business and increases mobile data usage across the subscriber base through the creation of personalized IP service bundles and price plans targeted at different user groups.

Adoption of 3G Capable Handsets will Accelerate Data Growth

• 3G handset capability enable operators to launch rich new (IP-based) services
  • Popular Applications Include:
    • Streaming Video / Mobile TV
    • Push-to-Talk Services
    • Video Conference
    • Location Based Applications

 

Extract more revenue and realize three key standards:

Prevent Revenue leakage

Existing OSS/BSS do not have the real-time ability to rate or hotline subscriber data sessions, especially on a differential or per-flow basis. IP Rating & Charging proactively minimizes revenue leakage, errors and fraud by handling balance management, service verification and monitoring subscriber activities in real-time. Services can be blocked by configuring a flexible combination of destination profiles (URL, IP address, port) and/or specific application protocols. There are no more surprises as operator now have full control to block and permit services individually based on the subscriber status.

Personalize all subscriber segments

With flat rate pricing, some subscribers are either deterred from trying new services or others take advantage of the available bandwidth. Operators can avoid this situation by segmenting their subscribers. IP Rating & Charging enables operators to target different groups of users with customized price plans. For example, operators can attract corporate groups who demand always-on connectivity and use high-end data services with bucket rating, cross bundling of services and flexible content-aware (protocol, URL, IP address) rates.

Parents can utilize IP Rating & Charging’s personalization capabilities to implement parental control options. IP Rating & Charging provides parents with control over global black and white lists. This can be based on URL and subscriber information such as age with parental opt-in/out or parents can restrict the amount of usage by the number or size of downloads.

Regardless if subscribers are prepaid, postpaid or hybrid, all user segments can experience truly customized personalization. IP Rating and Charging increases ARPU through differential rating, allowing subscribers to understand exactly what they are paying for.

Content correlation

Attract more subscribers and content providers with the ability to rate with granularity down to the packet level, making mobile portals profitable.

IP Rating & Charging also has the ability to distinguish charges between bearer transport and the event. Zero-rating bearer flows allow the operator to charge only for the data event (MMS, download, etc.) without double-charging the subscriber for the transport. This predictable charging behaviour makes mobile portals more attractive and contributes to increased mobile data usage across the entire subscriber base.