Managing the monetization of lifestyle services

Joonas Ojala, Comptel Corp
05 Aug 2008
00:00

Communications service providers (CSPs) across Asia are racing to get their networks ship-shape to support the capacity and flexibility demanded by higher-bandwidth data and content services.

A report by ABI Research concluded that global capital expenditure on mobile communications exceeded $131 billion in 2007, and would reach $163.5 billion in 2013. The report predicted that much of this spend would be in Asia Pacific, driven by the expansion of current 2G networks and the rollout of 3G.

Technologies such as HSDPA are becoming more established, significantly boosting capacity and network performance, such that the much vaunted content-rich, more lifestyle-oriented services are now heading for a phone near you.

Meanwhile, today's consumers have become very demanding - they are accustomed to choice and flexibility in their lives and they expect CSPs to deliver the services they want quickly and efficiently.

As more and more customers demand these lifestyle services, the big challenge facing CSPs is going to be managing their monetization - this will include everything from managing business arrangements often within new and unique business models, processing data of varying kinds across multiple networks and from different devices, rating and discounting, and of course, reconciliation and reporting to an ever-extending and diversifying value chain.

The big change for CSPs lies in the extended value chain created by involving the numerous new content and application vendors required to deliver this new set of services that customers will be demanding. This is fundamentally changing the relationship between service provider and content and application providers.

The key impact of this is that interconnect becomes infinitely more complex. In today's market, CSPs deal with simply voice and SMS data and manage interconnect between carriers on a local and international basis. In tomorrow's world, CSPs will be dealing with a much broader array of content types and formats and managing interconnect between an ecosystem of partners that includes and extends well beyond fellow carriers.

Server vs network

Most CSPs are set up to deliver a one-size-fits-all approach to services, and their networks and systems obviously reflect that. They are accustomed to delivering services such as telephony that come from the provider's own network rather than content and applications that come from a third-party's server. Tomorrow's services will be made up of many different parts delivered by many different participants in the value chain.

CSPs need to adopt OSS and billing systems that can efficiently track and measure the usage of services across different networks and to different devices, while simultaneously managing the reporting and reconciliation needed to allocate the resulting charges accurately to each of the involved parties.

For example, let's say a customer is watching Tyson Gay compete in the 100 meter men's final in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While watching the build-up, the customer responds to an onscreen ad for a new energy drink and, just following the race, responds to an ad from Adidas, the sprinter's main sponsor. The CSP, which manages the billing relationship with the customer, suddenly has to send a bill not only for the usage time for watching the final, but maybe also an on-demand charge, a soft drink and a pair of running shoes via Amazon.

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