Real Time Convergent Charging and Policy Management are a necessity!

Real Time Convergent Charging (RTCC) and Policy Management go hand in hand, with 95% of the CSP’s that responded to TM Forum’s recent Insights Research paper ‘RTCC and Policy Management’ [Link] saying that they cannot remain competitive without implementing it in some form.

The benefits of introducing RTCC can be great for the CSPs for a whole number of reasons such as improving customer experience, minimising or negate bill shock and providing a means to monetise the OTT market.

As customer experience quickly becomes the critical focus for operators, RTCC and policy management will allow operators to be much more creative and agile in how they interact with the customer and a lot quicker in the introducing new services and products

Bad Profits

Currently the two largest uses for RTCC and Policy Management are bill shock management and threshold management, which are great, but - even now - there are companies who use them in rather blunt ways. Capping or throttling customers who reach data caps, or charging ‘premium’ prices for going over limits. This creates ‘bad profits’ and does nothing to enhance the customer experience.

However some CSP’s have the idea, using these tools to build a bond with the customer and ultimately using it to drive revenue growth. When customers get close to limits they are warned they're close, and offered ‘extensions’ to their data or broadband usage for a set price, repeat ‘offenders’ can be marked for upsell opportunities offering them a better package at a higher price, but one that would be cheaper than the charges they would otherwise incur.

In the short term, this doesn't drive as much revenue as the charges, but, as should be obvious, a loyal customer is more profitable than a customer who leaves because they feel they've been ripped off.

As the marriage between RTCC and Policy Management becomes more complete (94% will implemented a RTCC & PM strategy within two years and 64% within the next year) operators and CSP’s will be able to produce more innovative offerings to their customers.

This will enable them to increase revenue through USPs – introducing flexible services that the customer can control such as Holiday mode, sharing data, moving portions of broadband download limits onto mobiles – especially as networks move towards 4G LTE. And on the topic of LTE, Policy management and RTCC will be necessary for the introduction of VoLTE to ensure bandwidth is properly managed.

Over The Top

Lots has been made of the need to monetize the OTT trend, and with a RTCC and Policy Management, CSP’s and operators can. 

A good number of them are offering free data when using apps like WhatsApp and Facebook, others are offering Netflix or sports services when they sign up (Virgin Media, Vodafone) whilst others are competing directly with their own offering (Sky’s NowTV, UPC’s Horizon) Policy management and RTCC is vital in letting operators omit these services from customer’s data use. 

The nature of the relationship with OTT players is only really beginning to be explored, but it can be as simple as free data, it could be as one Indian MSO does, offering bundles of access to YouTube, Facebook and other OTT services instead of, or in line with data allowances.

Or CSP’s could really be involved with developing the relationship, making it a truly two way relationship that benefits both, working with Google’s Project Loon or Facebook's Internet.org to bring internet (and telecoms) to remote places with the knowledge, infrastructure and software they already have in abundance. OTT’s get more customers, CSP’s get more customers.

However the future unfolds, one thing appears to be a common theme throughout it all, the need for Real Time Convergent Charging and Policy Management, preferably together, to drive new revenue growth. 


This article was written by Craig Maxwell-Brown. Business Development Associate for CoralTree Systems Limited. Views are not necessarily the companies views.