Over the past few years, there has been an explosive growth in data traffic across wireless networks as customers use smartphones and tablets to not only access emails and check social media, but also to stream videos and do their online shopping. According to research from Cisco Systems, in 2013, mobile networks carried nearly 18 exabytes of traffic.
To meet these growing demands, wireless providers have begun turning to Long Term Evolution (LTE) to help them best monetize data services for these bandwidth-hungry subscribers. Their goal: create personalized, flexible LTE plans and promotion that offer a seamless subscriber experience and faster integration. At the same time, however, operators and ISPs are under pressure to not only reduce margins while sharing revenue with third-party service providers, but also to make a shift from delivering basic communication services to high-value, personalized ones.
To meet these goals, operators and ISPs need advanced O/BSS capabilities that allow them to roll out services quickly in a highly competitive marketplace. What should they be looking for from their billing vendor as they look to monetize LTE services? Operators need to consider platforms that allow them to:
- Upgrade their existing platform to create differentiated offerings. This can be accomplished through a highly refined product catalog that applies a rules-based approach to offering plans and packages.
- Achieve greater transparency in billing and charging. This allows them to work more easily with both third-party providers and customers.
- Support geographical roll-outs with quick time-to-market. Operators need to be able to personalize plans based on a variety of factors, including geography, to best match the needs of their customers and to roll out competitive offerings as quickly as possible.
- Provide third-party over-the-top (OTT)/content services for the customers. While OTT players can be a threat to operators, they can also present a huge opportunity to offer new and differentiated services to their customer base. A O/BSS solution needs the flexibility to support such partnerships.
