“They want to make VoIP calls while downloading messages. They want post-paid mobile service at work and prepaid during personal time. Unfortunately, when it comes to this type of personalisation, “billing” has been a major obstacle. Traditional charging solutions were never meant to handle quick change charging plans and e-merchandising, a real-time activity that requires rating and offers on the spot. That’s why providers need an affordable charging solution that can handle the real-time demands.
Transforming the customer experience is about creating ‘charging models’ that are truly customer centric. Are your customers business users? Are they parents? Are they sports fans? Do they volunteer? Maybe they do all these things. After you create packages with virtually any mix of video, voice, high-speed Internet, and mobile services, you can go further in ways that are consistently shown to boost usage, loyalty, and market share.
Telcordia offers Real-Time Charging, which enables real-time rating and session control. At the heart of this network-aware solution is a real-time IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Online Charging System (OCS). It gives you the unique ability to broker circuit-switched and packet-based charging sessions simultaneously across IP, VoIP/IMS, and circuit-switched domains, because it integrates with switches, IP servers, and IMS Call State Control Functions (CSCFs) at a highly attractive cost per transaction.”
McCarthy concludes, “Operators can embellish services, promotions, and features faster than ever before with next generation, real-time charging capabilities, whether it’s circuit-switched voice and messaging services, multimedia mobile gaming, or IMS.”