Bangkok--7 Jan--Weber Shandwick
Marriage isn’t always easy. But all of us know at least one great couple that seems to beat the tough odds because they were simply destined to be together.
One such couple is charging and policy management, a marriage made in heaven when it comes to monetizing data services. Please allow me to explain…
Service providers are concerned about how to best monetize their data services. The data explosion is straining their networks, but revenues from data still lag far behind voice revenues. How will service providers generate more revenues from data? What IT capabilities do they need in order to fully monetize their 4G/LTE (Long Term Evolution) network investments?
An Amdocs-sponsored global survey* conducted by industry analyst firm Heavy Reading focused on which strategies leading companies are planning to implement inorder to increase their data revenues in the 4G/LTE era. The overwhelming consensus among service providers indicated that policy management and charging integration is key to enabling more advanced services and price plans. To quote the wise ‘80s rocker Billy Idol, “It’s a nice day for a white wedding!”
The results of the survey indicate that service providers are looking to 4G to deliver service innovation beyond higher capacity and faster speeds. They want to offer personalized data plans and real-time visibility and control over data spending in order to improve the customer experience and better monetize 4G investments.
As 4G LTE becomes the standard network technology, service providers want to launch more advanced services and price plans.In fact, 92 percent of survey respondents said their marketing department is asking their IT organization to enable innovative data price plans, while 70 percent said their companies cannot enable innovative data price plans because of IT limitations.
But policy management and charging must be unified to enable the above capabilities, and as mentioned earlier, even the best couples experience difficulties. Forty percent of respondents to the Heavy Reading survey said they have either tried, or are currently trying, to integrate charging and policy management systems with unsatisfactory results. This is a significant increase compared to 10 percent last yearwho admitted to such attempts.
The research indicates that the best solutions for service providersfeature pre-integrated charging and policy systems, and also include a single product catalog across both systems, to solve broken product management processes that cause time to market delays. And delays are bad, especially when I’m waiting for the appetizers at a wedding…
*Heavy Reading interviewed 70 senior executives from 35 service providers across the globe.
ShaharYaacobi is the product marketing manager of data services at Amdocs.