Part Two: Solutions

Maximising Revenue from IP-based Services

In addition to pure data delivery services such as email access and file transfer aimed primarily at the corporate market, the impact of enabling consumer targeted Internet style content delivery via a telecommunications device introduces many new potential revenue streams flowing across multiple partners in the service delivery chain. This adds complexity from the end user perspective (how do I use and pay for content?), the content partner perspective (how do I provision my content to the end-user and make money from this?) and the telecommunications operator (how do I extract revenue for delivering this content?).

A particular issue that becomes relevant is the correct management of copyright and intellectual property for electronic based content (for example delivering music royalties to the artist/record company for an MP3 download service), known as Digital Rights Management (DRM).

As postpaid users have traditionally been offered access to a much richer service capability set than their prepaid counterparts (primarily due to the technical differences in IN prepaid platforms and IT based BSS platforms), it is essential that the next generation of services can be offered to all users, regardless of the payment mechanism.

Real Time Charging and Control for Next Generation Services – the new OSS requirement

The growth of packet data based services is already, and will continue to, drive the network and IT domains closer together. These are traditionally very distinct domains, with the world of the network concerned with real-time service delivery and constant availability and the IT world focused on processing large volumes of event usage data efficiently within a highly customer-centric framework. It is clear that next generation services demand all of these requirements.

The richness and interactive nature of the content and communication based services that will be offered will require dynamic session management, user dialogue interaction and real-time charging, facilitating the need for a bi- or multi-directional inter-working capability (Intec refers to this as ‘Active Mediation’) that meets the stringent performance and availability requirements associated with telecommunications networks. The footprint of this capability must adapt to complement the capabilities of the existing network and OSS/BSS infrastructure.

It is clear that there are many technical issues to consider in the deployment of a suitable inter-working architecture that connects the network and IT worlds, however it is very likely that such architectures will play a major part of next generation revenue generation for telecommunication service providers and their business partners.

By offering services to their customers tailored to user profiles and payment preferences, and having full control over the user session, operators can maintain a significant part of the revenue stream growth, maintain their brand value and build profitable content relationships. In addition existing infrastructure capabilities can be built upon, helping to lower the total cost of ownership of such investments.

Intec is an exhibitor at Billing Systems 2005, running consecutively for over 12 years this prestigious event is well recognised as the largest and most important billing, CRM & revenue management date in the calendar.  Billing Systems exhibition and conference takes place in London from April 4th – 7th, 2005 at the Olympia Conference & Exhibition Centre, London. For further information see www.iir.co.uk/billing, email: billing@telecoms.iir.co.uk or call +44(0)20 7915 5055.