Comverse has coupled its industry leading Business Support System (BSS) and mobile internet solutions to help operators capitalise on the explosive growth in data traffic — not only in terms of providing the right quality of service to end users, but also to extend revenue opportunities by implementing new data-centric business models.
For each mobile data network, operators establish rules, or policies, for the plethora of services now available to subscribers, such as on-line gaming and streaming video. However, standalone policy solutions are not a complete answer. A merging of network policies with pricing policies is required: The subscriber data held in the BSS is key to delivering the required subscriber experience in the network.
What limits and conditions, for instance, are imposed on the use of these services? And what is the bandwidth and network priority applicable to these services? Too often, these policies are haphazard, uncoordinated, or even conflicting — and in some cases, operators just offer flat-rate plans with unlimited service.
"Operators have discovered that flat-rate pricing for unlimited data usage is not working, both in terms of maximising value and providing quality service for all subscribers, who are demanding a ‘perfect' experience," said Gabriel Matsliach, President of Products and Operations at Comverse, the world's leading supplier of software and systems enabling value-added messaging and content services, converged billing and active customer management and IP communications.
"Bringing together capabilities from Comverse ONE Billing and Active Customer Management with those from the Comverse Mobile Internet HUB," Matsliach said, "allows telecom operators to seamlessly manage all policy dimensions holistically to capture all revenues as defined by the operators' monetisation policies while ensuring a satisfying user experience."
With the combined solution, operators can better manage network capacity, offer segmented price plans, prevent bill shock for subscribers, deliver Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees, and impose fair use limits on high users, says Comverse.
"It is clear that policy must be managed on many levels to unlock value for both the operator and subscriber," Matsliach says. "You must consider subscriber data, application needs, device capabilities and network conditions. Now more than ever, an operator's network operations and IT department must work as one, so operators can define rules once and can apply them transparently."