Convergys Corporation announced today at Mobile World Congress 2012 the launch of the latest version of its Rating & Billing Manager. Together with Active Mediation this new version provides standards-based real-time policy control that links the network interface to billing and charging. In addition, the new solution brings real-time promotion capabilities to proactively identify up-sell opportunities and reduce churn. Rating & Billing Manager is part of Convergys’ Smart Suite of products, which enable communications operators to have tight control on customer data usage that is personalized to individual preferences, charging and usage history.
Convergys is already deploying this new version to tier one operator UNE in Latin America to improve speed and customer experience with a real-time view of customer data and faster time-to-market of personalized promotions. UNE was looking to monetize 4G services through a convergent billing system with quick access to data and an automated view of customers.
According to UNE, “We are investing in new technologies that will enable us to offer compelling services, attract more customers, and further grow the business. We needed a solution that not only fulfilled our immediate requirements, but could also grow seamlessly with us as we add to our portfolio of telecommunications services (especially for Mobile Services). Convergys’ real-time, convergent platform is that solution.”
Convergys’ latest release of its Rating & Billing Manager, coupled with Active Mediation, provides standards-based real-time policy control from the network interface to billing and charging; covering the Policy Control and Rules Function (PCRF) and User Data Repository (UDR), in addition to the existing support for simultaneous online and offline convergent charging. Rating & Billing Manager’s proven and fully documented Application Programming Interface (API) for integration to other Business Support Systems (BSS) ensures that the policy applied on the network is linked right through to front end systems, such as CRM or self care.
Convergys’ products eliminate the complexities and challenges inherent with the construction of a policy solution from individual discrete components, naturally shortening the time required to put an end-to-end network policy solution into production. With granular control of usage in place, operators can leverage the new real-time promotions capabilities in Rating & Billing Manger to automatically identify and react to up-sell opportunities and usage patterns that are indicative of potential churn.
“As the speed of data transfer within telecommunications constantly increases, customers utilize available network capacity with ever-popular high-definition video and Smartphone applications,” said Bob Lento, President, Convergys Smart Revenue Solutions. “Increased data capacity is not free, so operators must find revenue-generators through up-sell opportunities and have better control of their networks.”
According to a Cisco report on global mobile data traffic, there was a 2.3-fold increase in global mobile data traffic in 2011, more than doubling for the fourth year in a row. The same Cisco report also says global mobile data traffic is expected to increase 18-fold between 2011 and 2016 at a CAGR of 78%, reaching 10.8 Exabytes /per month by 2016.
“While network equipment to control data usage even down to a very granular level has been available for some time, it has often been deployed in isolation from the customer care and billing environment. This makes it very difficult to link the policies that are applied to each user in the network to the rich profile information that is available and the services that they are charged,” added Lento. “Convergys Rating & Billing Manager now allows operators to intelligently monetize and have control of their network usage without impacting the customer experience.”
Convergys develops and implements Smart Revenue Solutions for the telecoms, cable, satellite, broadband and utilities markets. These solutions can help providers to Solve for today. Evolve for tomorrow.SM Convergys’ Solve and Evolve approach enables providers to have the tools to transform to the changing world. Convergys calls it SmartLifeSM; transforming everyday touch points and transactions into seamless, positive, loyalty-building customer experiences.
The latest version of Rating & Billing Manager brings a wealth of new functionality which is applicable to different vertical markets from telecommunications to utilities. Key features for this release:
• Integrated Network Policy control to provide granular control of network access while ensuring total consistency with billing and charging
• Installment billing to manage the payment for a large purchase, such as a solar panel or telephone handset over a number of bills
• Payment arrangements, for example so that an existing debt can be paid off over a number of bills
• Changes to cater for specific requirements of different countries and jurisdictions across the globe. From support for Hijri calendar charge periods in the Middle East to taxation refinements in North America
• Richer APIs and integration points allowing even easier deployment into an operator’s environment
• Real-time promotion capabilities to proactively identify up-sell opportunities or churn risks and react to them