Evolving Services Require Flexible and Accurate Charging
BSS must change to support new services amid the increasing complexity of open ecosystems.
The days of static and inflexible charging for telecom services are coming to an end. Users are moving away from paying set rates for voice calls or data consumption and instead starting to pay only for the specific services that they want and use. BSS must evolve beyond its traditional scope to support these new user needs.
New Services and Roles
New offerings like network slices will require charging at different rates according to the specific type, time and location of the service. Further complexity will be added as CSPs carve out a wider role in the digital value chain by providing additional adjacent services and bundles with multiple parties in the service delivery chain.
CSPs therefore need adaptable BSS to charge dynamically for a specific network slice or service. For example, an asset-tracking service might want to charge its customers on a pay-per-ping basis, but how will the CSP enable that? Are all pings the same, or are there different costs per ping to consider? How will CSPs present these differences and set prices for them?
Charging has to not only cover telecom network usage, but also extend to cover adjacent services. Take for example a service that contains elements of network consumption alongside mobile edge compute utilization. Subsequent charging for that service must clearly and accurately reflect both the network usage and the compute resource consumption.
BSS must enable versatile charging to deal with the growing complexity of increasingly sophisticated services and shifting roles in the telecom industry.
Flexible Charging
New approaches to traditional telecom charging need to be adopted to support propositions like service-specific network slices and charging for specific classes of service. BSS needs to become dynamic and flexible to incorporate all of the new variables from next-generation services while maintaining transparency, precision and simplicity in billing. This telco-grade accuracy is essential for fostering trust across the value chain and making multiparty business cases a practical reality.
Click here to learn more about BSS and its role in supporting new services and multipartner business cases.