Usage-Based Billing Back on Agenda

If TWC deploys the right blend of mediation, rating, billing and CRM advancements, the company could serve as a model for the telecom industry. By employing active mediation, rating and bandwidth management, it is possible to relate usage to individual subscribers.

“The usage-based charging approach could offer Time Warner Cable the opportunity to blend in other promotions based on usage, such as tiered discounts, separate peak/off-peak usage, sponsored usage, and so on,” says Sanjay Mehta, senior director of product marketing for Oracle Communications. “This is a clear indication that the cable industry sees billing as a strategic tool for driving revenue growth.”

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Dan Baker, research director of the OSS/BSS KnowledgeBase at Dittberner Associates, says it would be great for the revenue-assurance department. “It would give them one more thing to track.”

However, he thinks the model TWC is talking about is more of an on-demand design. “It is different from tracking packets, but maybe more real,” Baker says.

While no one has been able to convince the public to pay by the byte in North America, it is standard practice in Korea and Japan, Baker says. He explains that SK Telekom is able to correlate usage data from a session that includes a voice call, a text message and a music download within 10 seconds and show you on your phone how your account was decremented. “That is very complex,” he says.

Cappellani says usage-based charging already is used in the enterprise, but for it to succeed with consumers, service providers will have to proactively perceive limits and integrate intelligent messaging into the infrastructure.

“If a customer is about to make a download, there should be an opportunity for the service provider to text a message about an upgrade to accommodate the immediate need for more bandwidth. If a pattern is detected, perhaps there could be a way to trigger an upsell offer of a better service plan for the customer,” he says.

Whether service providers have the type of infrastructure to engender that type of intelligence and transparency will depend on whether they’ve invested in real-time rating, charging and billing, bandwidth management and CRM systems today.

Dittberner Associates www.dittberner.com
Oracle Corp. www.oracle.com
Sigma Systems www.sigma-systems.com
Time Warner cable www.timewarnercable.com