Charging and Policy

Executive Summary

Ericsson Charging and Policy is a scalable, flexible BSS solution that delivers decoupling, configurability, a future-proof product roadmap, convergent real-time charging and policy support, a strong user-experience focus and reduced total cost of ownership. In doing so, it creates an invaluable competitive advantage for operators looking to thrive in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Ericsson Charging and Policy is fully convergent, supporting all services, all access, all payment alternatives. Services such as SMS, MMS, voice and broadband are all supported in real time, which creates vast opportunities for operators to do innovative cross-bundles and packages and explore new business models targeting the fast changing market needs.

Ericsson is the definite market leader in real-time charging with more than 170 customers worldwide and seen as the largest Policy function provider serving more than 120 customers.

User Experience

Ericsson Charging and Policy enables operators to combine securing their charging and payments with enhancing the end-user experience. In turn, better user experience will lead to additional revenue streams. This is further nurtured through functionalities enabling subscribers to request and update account information and to stay informed about costs, balances and bonuses in real-time. This is crucial to today’s customers, who want to know what they are paying for, what they get and exactly how much services cost. Negative user experiences such as the “bill shocks” inhibit consumption and contribute to churn, whereas real-time spending control builds trust and leads to greater usage and service uptake.

Real-time end-user notifications have the additional advantage of creating strong up-sell opportunities, with promotions coming with relevant services usually perceived as being less intrusive and more personal by consumers. Ericsson Charging and Policy offerings are pre integrated with Ericsson Multiservice Delivery Platform to provide functions such as mobile broadband self-care, into new segments and verticals.

Policy

Ericsson Charging and Policy enable differentiated mobile broadband products, giving operators the ability to charge and change bandwidth and provide real-time alerts and notifications to consumers based on their behavior, giving them the power to influence the quality of their service and control their overall costs. It also give the operator a point were users can subscribe or purchase products, discounts or just in time promotions based on their immediate need. Ericsson Charging and Policy is pre integrated with Ericsson Service-Aware Policy Controller (SAPC) to provide a centralized policy and charging management functions in the existing infrastructure and secure the evolvement into IMS networks and in the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network architecture according to System Architecture Evolution (SAE).