By Zia Askari
When operators look for better data monetization techniques, intelligence equipped integrated policy and charging solution with centralized product catalog can go a long way in terms of strengthening their data revenue streams.
Driven by a deeply entrenched smartphone ecosystem, we are fast moving towards an era of high volume of data services, and not just data but high speed, highly available data services. And in this age of smartphones and tablets powering data intake – operators also need to incorporate smart systems in place, in order to create better growth, it is time for them to ‘profitize’ with real-time mobile data services.
Integrated policy and charging with centralized product catalog can provide a unique way to monetize real-time mobile data services at the same time, letting operators to better engage with their customers in a personalized manner.
Driving the next level of personalization in customer engagement, a centralized product catalog includes product definition and pricing attributes which are shared across multiple applications and process including Billing, Charging and Self-care.
Integration with PCRF solution enables operators to define policies in an in-depth manner and establish a better connect with their subscriber base offering them a bird’s eye view of the services and cost associated with the services at a centralized product catalog level, resulting in strengthening of profitability for operators.
Dawn of an Era of Intelligence Billing
With such high level of customer engagement, operators can move towards an era of intelligent billing, where customers get what they want, based on the analytics and they can actually design their own billing as well.
With this level of intelligence powering the billing ecosystem, operators are able to deliver personalized plans at the network level as suggested by Analytics and created by product catalog. This is achieved in telecom network by a unique combination of PCRF and PCEF.
Here PCRF holds the key, as PCEF is pure network element and PCRF plays the role of a common thread that seamlessly binds BSS and network in complete togetherness, taking inputs from BSS for type of plan/QoS/bandwidth etc. and instructing PCEF to implement these on the network side. This symphony between PCEF and PCRF helps in creation of new revenue generating plans in a timely fashion and hence considerably reduces the time to market capacity for the operators.
3 ways operators can better monetize with centralized product catalog
•Integrated policy and charging with centralized product catalog provides true business agility and gives operators unique chance to launch novel revenue generation packages, plans, A-la-Carte offerings, quickly to the market.
•This can also help in creating unique market segmentations, attracting and retaining high-value customers.
•Strengthening operator’s revenue streams, this enables cross-selling and up-selling of services, cross-discounts and promotions, generating greater usage and considerably raising the ARPU for the operator.
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