Professional Documents
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a MaRketeRs hanDbook
COnTenTs
Winning the Mobile Data Revenue Challenge a Marketers handbook Introduction Innovate to Differentiate - segmented Data Plans Data Plan Innovations Part II Meeting the needs of the Occasional User 3 4 5 6 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
InTRODUCTIOn
In this e-book, Openet and our partners IBM, Juniper networks, and analyst firm Telesperience share our experiences of working with service providers on marketing and evolving data services, by leveraging the latest in technology. As service providers continue their transition to customer-centric organizations, marketing departments increasingly have a greater stake in deciding what services will drive the business and the mechanisms to take these services to market. It seems that marketers must produce a conveyor belt of improvements and ideas from data plan innovations, to customer experience, to delivering on your brands quality promises. Translating a service providers marketing vision into reality, by launching, provisioning, and monetizing those services is a formidable task for the operators IT and Marketing teams. Operators back-office systems can be a bottleneck, adding cost and slowing time-to-market when it comes to capturing the opportunities presented by mobile IP-based services. For marketers to drive this agenda, they require a deep understanding of customers, market dynamics, and competitors. It also involves an understanding of the internal capabilitiesthe art of the possible. This e-Book will show how marketing can use next generation policy and charging control (PCC) software, to transform their data marketing initiatives. PCC is the combination of Policy Management and Charging. Policy provides the intelligence, and configurability to dynamically govern what a subscriber is allowed to do, and the network resources to be allocated, or made available e.g. Quality of service. Charging governs how subscribers pay for a service, the charging models used, and management of monetary balances. Together these elements provide marketers with a fresh approach to the pricing, packaging, promotions and offers, enabling more innovativion, lowering the costs to trial new ideas, and improving the agility to respond to competitive threats. This e-book will provide insight, ideas, and inspiration into what fellow marketers are working on to improve their market position. Dont be trapped by legacy systems, or legacy mindsets. set your own rules with PCC.
- Create competitively priced, tiered service plans - Sell application-specific plans - Charge extra for usage of Peer-to-Peer protocols
- Subscriber centric balance: sharing a data balance among a number of devices e.g. between an iPad and iPhone
- Family data plans: allowing a data balance to be shared among a defined subset of subscribers - Bolt-on: enabling a tethering option to be purchased for an extra charge
This flexibility also pays dividends when it comes to managing the customer experience associated with these options, especially when integrated with subscriber portals. subscribers can choose to dynamically add a new service, which can be purchased on a recurring or non-recurring basis. Additionally, realtime threshold notifications can be sent, with subscribers being redirected to landing pages to view their balances or to purchase additional services. Offering flexibility to subscribers with how they use their data services creates an opportunity to build loyalty. Cutting prices and offering more data allowances is not the only choice for operators. Providing value extends beyond low price.
PCC gives marketers the flexibility to adopt different strategic approaches to the proliferation of subscriber devices and demand for data access. PCC provides flexibility with how operators and subscribers can manage their balances, accounts, and services. This includes being able to create data plans specific to a device, or one shared by multiple devices, or by multiple subscribers.
Service Passes
- Sell access to data services without requiring a long term contract - Support multiple payment methods, including auto renewal options
- Slice and dice how services are sold, and charging models used - Subscriber transparency into data consumption and threshold alerts
The ad hoc nature of service pass based relationships requires operators to offer connectivity of flexible duration, make it easy to purchase, and ensure services are immediately provisioned. service Passes provide such an option, enabling operators to create a lucrative new revenue stream.
Transform the Customer Experience with Openet Policy and Charging Controls
*infonetics March 2011 Report:
This article is an abridged version of original text, approved by IBM, from an IBM Institute for Business Value Executive Report called Telco 2015 -Five telling years, four future scenarios.
Provide risk-free trials to improve services adoption - Lower the costs of subscriber acquisition - Encourage first time smartphone users to try data - Happy Hour promotions to drive traffic - Bundle applications with voice and text plans - Support advertising/sponsor funded access
PCC (Policy and Charging Controls) enables operators to be more responsive and granular in their approach with promotional offers. It makes it easier to quickly turnaround promotions, as it moves the decision point away from backend Business support systems, such as Billing, and closer to the customer. When combined with the visibility it provides of applications on the network, it enhances marketings ability to take action. It provides a highly configurable decision point, for marketers to trigger realtime promotions based on subscriber data plan, current activity, usage profile,
Whats more this can be done quickly and at low cost. Marketers can launch new promotions fast, and use a subscribers profile to deliver tightly targeted promotions. subscribers can be directed to the promotion with redirects to a landing page, or via sMs, or through IVR. Importantly, customers can accept these promotions in real-time, to buy and use new services immediately. Everyone loves a surprise. Delighting the customer is the experience that many operators strive towards. However, a one-size fits all approach wont work; personalize your promotions with PCC.
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- Provide subscriber notifications of usage & thresholds - Self-manage account details, data spending limits, and content controls - Manage roaming services and bill-shock
With an increasing number of data plans, service options, and ways to pay for services, operators have to work harder to manage the experience on behalf of customers. As things become more complex, being able to provide subscribers with immediate, relevant, and personalized information, and enabling them to take action, self-sufficiently, is very powerful. PCC (Policy and Charging Controls) makes it easier for subscribers to access in real-time, threshold status, data allowance information, upgrade, and promotional information data. It introduces much needed flexibility to BSS processes to address billing inflexibility, manage dispersed subscriber information, and improve customer visibility of their data consumption. This makes it possible for marketers to cost-effectively act to improve timeliness and relevance of customer communications, e.g. redirecting a customer to a landing page who has consumed their data allowance to purchase more.
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Personalized Controls and Subscriber Protection - Enable customers to set personalized options - Enforce decisions according to users profile - Restrict access by type of service, or categorized content - Filter URLs based on content categories or black lists
Operators can use their position in the network to personalize subscriber experience, to protect subscribers, and participate more fully in the content delivery process. This applies to families, but equally to corporations, and educational establishments, who increasingly rely on Internet enabled devices to distribute content and for productivity gains.
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- Control unauthorized or excessive subscriber usage - Protect network resources ensuring better QoE - Ensure that high value services are protected
Its clearly a critical issue, with forecasts showing demand for data due to accelerate. The widely quoted Cisco VnI Mobile forecast* from February 2010, estimates that worldwide mobile data traffic will double every year through 2014, increasing by a factor of 39 times between 2009 and 2014. Investments in network capacity alone will not ensure operators can sustainably deliver a highperformance broadband experience.
*Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data, Traffic Forecast Update, 20102015 **Federal Communications Commission, Obi Technical Report, 2010
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MOneTIzInG VIDeO
Video and media services have emerged as the primary driver of data traffic, and their popularity is forecast to grow. The data traffic driven by these services threatens to wipe out data traffic profits. Operators are putting in place remedies to take the strain off their networks, and increase yields. However, these activities only address the cost side of the profitability equation. As more powerful devices become available, online video services such as YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, and TV Everywhere are becoming ever more popular. Video accounts for an average of 40 percent of the total volume in wireless networks worldwide, Bytemobiles Mobile Minute Metrics reports. This traffic surge threatens to wipe out data traffic profits. However, video also represents an opportunity to win more revenues and provide a differentiated service. Taking advantage of new content, applications, and devices; subscribers will consume all available bandwidth and still expect the same quality of service that came with their original service plansif not better. This trend will continue as live streaming video broadcasts and video-on demand go mainstream.
- Create new revenue streams from video & other media - Use Quality of Service to differentiate offerings, by video type & plan
Using PCC, operators can offer new, segmented services based on different subscribers, and video services needs. Optimization technology can manage traffic more efficiently, but it does not link growth to revenues. Increased demand on capacity requires greater control of networks and the ability to manage the quality of subscribers mobile video experience. Marketers can increase profitability by serving content more efficiently, to more subscribers and delivering a superior user experience to reduce churn. Mediabased policy enforcement capabilities enable operators to plan and implement tiered service plans to monetize traffic by subscriber usage.
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Policy Charging enforcement Function Gateway GPRs support node Policy Charging Rules Function Policy Gateway
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ABOUT Us
ABOUT OPeneT
Attract subscribers, provide them a great experience, maximize revenue from them, and minimize the cost to serve them. sounds simple until you try to do it with millions of subscribers supported by inflexible legacy infrastructure amidst an ever-changing set of business requirements. To succeed in this environment, you must first know your subscribers and how they use your services, be capable of deploying innovative business models that maximize revenue, and be able to control the allocation of your network resources intelligently and efficiently. This is making the most of every network and customer. And Openet can help with our service Optimization software. A global company, Openet is used by the worlds largest and most innovative service providers including AT&T, BT, Orange, Telstra, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon Wireless.
CORPORATe HeADQUARTeRs
Openet 6 Beckett Way Park West Business Park Dublin 12 Ireland Tel: +353 1 620 4600 Fax: +353 1 620 4990 email: info@openet.com
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