4G BSS Defuses the Mobile Data Traffic Explosion

By Morag Lucey

With smart phones, tablet PCs and 4G taking the world by storm, 2011 has been a year of incredible milestones portending an even greater future for the mobile industry.

Ordinarily such prospects would have C-level leaders and market pundits dancing in the streets.

So why amid the general 4G euphoria does one knowledgeable source, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, issue a recent infographic depicting the mobile data explosion as, literally, a bomb with a lit fuse?

In a word: spectrum.

In the United States alone, the FCC asserts that operators will be managing a 35-fold increase in broadband traffic by 2015. The culprits: those same smart devices at the heart of the mobile boom. Smart phones generate 24 times more data than feature handsets, and tablet PCs generate 122 times more data than smart phones.

The FCC is sending a warning. Today’s 4G mobile data boom must be seen against the backdrop of a growing “spectrum crunch." It’s a scenario where broadband-hungry consumers chase a finite amount of capacity, and mobile operators, forced into heavy network investments to keep up with demand, will find it harder to monetize mobile data.

The FCC has a policy agenda, too: promoting legislation that will implement auctions of unused broadcast spectrum for use by others, including wireless companies. That idea has general support from the wireless industry and other sectors including cable. I’d only caution that passing laws can take time. Mobile operators have issues right now that bear on their ability to monetize 4G. Can they afford to wait?

In a recent Heavy Reading white paper sponsored by Convergys, senior analyst Ari Banerjee calls for an alternate, even visionary approach to 4G monetization that puts BSS in the cockpit – and that can be put to work right now. It is a dramatically evolved approach with intelligent BSS at the center of operations. There it integrates with and leverages data pulled enterprise-wide, and even from external sources, to manage the four critical ingredients of 4G monetization: time to market; cost management; scalability; and the customer experience.

4 Key Ingredients of BSS for 4G

A glimpse at how this new and evolved 4G BSS works:

• Time to Market. To satisfy shareholders expecting ROI on 4G, operators must generate new revenue streams quickly from existing customers, and make service packages attractive to pry customers from competitors. With real-time, 4G BSS solutions, operators will be able to dynamically manage and act on customer data from a variety of sources, quickly rolling out tailored products that precisely meet the needs and interests of each customer. The true 4G BSS solution will provide operators with competitive edge via centralized product management that speeds rate changes for new offers, and a robust approach to transaction/offer management that works in real time to launch new services, decommission old ones – or both.
• Improving the Customer Experience. Customers now expect personalized services, ubiquitous access, broad choices and seamless connectivity. Performance-sensitive services must be delivered with low latency and a high user experience if they are to generate new revenue. The smarter, evolved BSS solution will address these needs with embedded policy management that improves the customer experience in either a prepaid or postpaid scenario.
• Scalability. 4G BSS will ramp up to easily handle the transaction loads of today’s mobile data explosion, processing events with minimal latency. It can also support the requirements of wholesale billing through the entire lifecycle, from service creation to pricing and sales.
• Controlling Costs. Operators will be compelled to invest in new broadband infrastructure to meet customer demand for bandwidth. Smart BSS will use many tools – automation, business intelligence and analytics, to name a few – to drive down costs and maintain margins.

In the 4G era, the evolved BSS will be the central nervous system that manages and monetizes bandwidth. In so doing, this new, vaster vision will become something very different from older legacy solutions. 4G BSS will be the command post for integrating customer usage and subscription data with insights on the network, costs, supply chain, stock control, customer mood and customer preference, each contributing its part to the operator’s profit model.

Whether politics opens the door to more spectrum remains to be seen. No doubt, freeing up more spectrum for the future of wireless, be it 4G, 5G or beyond, is a good idea. As one cautionary note, however, auction enthusiasts might bear in mind the analogy of interstate highway systems, which seem to fill with traffic no matter how often they are expanded. 

Long before the FCC’s mobile data traffic congestion materializes, if indeed it ever does, operators should themselves take steps to ensure optimal management of the network, and put smart BSS solutions – expressly designed for 4G – behind the wheel.

Morag Lucey is global senior vice president of Marketing and Product Management for Convergys’ Smart Revenue Solutions for the telecoms, cable, satellite, broadband and utilities markets. Convergys solutions can help service providers meet the billing and customer care needs of the retail, enterprise, and wholesale sectors.