Following the recent launch of our white paper; The Network Operator's Guide to Differentiation in a Digital Age: How Established Policy and Pricing Can Provide a Competitive Advantage, the Product Manager, Victor Fernandez; discusses the challenges mobile operators face in addressing a digital transformation.
Digital transformation offers telecom operators the opportunity to rebuild their position in a commoditized market; rebuild customer engagement and reshape their operating cost structure, which could translate into improved value for the industry.
Customers now think in terms of services rather than traffic. They want to stream videos and music on demand, they want to stay up to date with social networks and play online games on the go. They don't want to worry about traffic consumption while doing it.
Undergo a digital transformation for meet customer needs today presents mobile operators with some challenges:
- Digital transformation begins with real-time control. Enabling customers to decide, purchase, and configure their mobile services based on their specific needs at any given moment means real-time control is a must. Mobile operators who want to offer a complete digital experience must respond accordingly to customer expectations and adapt appropriately to subscription features.
- The need to adapt your offering is a consequence of real-time monitoring and increased awareness of how customers use your services.
The enormous growth in data consumption requires simplified network optimization. To deliver the expected quality of service for every situation, service, or application for which customers use their mobile devices and ensure a satisfying experience, it's necessary to apply the right policies to the right customer at the right time to maintain network optimization. Mobile operators invest a large percentage of their budgets in improving access network capacity and capabilities, and it is crucial to enable tools that rationalize the use of capacity and capabilities to serve all customers equitably and provide a quality experience, allowing mobile operators to stay ahead of the competition.
- The more integrated the PCC functions (PCRF, SPR, OCS), the more convenient the operation, and the shorter the time to market. It's no secret that managing a mobile network is a huge and complex task. And, as mentioned in the previous points, customer expectations and demands are increasing every day. Therefore, a short time to market for new products and services, as well as cost-effective operational processes, are crucial when it comes to generating value and reducing costs, complexity, and risk. Mobile operators should seek tightly integrated network functions to minimize configuration processes, reducing not only staffing but also the need for highly qualified skills that may be difficult to find on the market.
For these reasons, the PCC architecture is becoming a must in mobile operator networks.
Symsoft has taken this a step further by consolidating PCC's core functions—the Online Recharge System (OCS), the Subscription Profile Repository (SPR), and the Policy and Rate Control Function (PCRF)—into a single network entity, reducing potential points of failure, integration efforts, and time-to-market for implementing new products and services.
