Solutions Broadband Segmentation
Overview Mobile operators are always challenged to maintain the right balance between customer experience and network capacity, even when they evolve towards more efficient SAE-LTE and 4G networks. Profitability will decline if fair usage is not enforced, if incremental revenues do not exceed capacity investments or subscribers churn due to bad experience. Tiered charging, service policy and usage management are critical activities for service providers to balance demands on network resources with driving profitability of bandwidth-hungry applications and always-connected devices. Volubill's Broadband Segmentation solution uniquely combines real-time charging, policy management and session control, including full DPI, real-time account balance management and charging. It enables service providers to evolve their mobile internet and broadband services to more targeted plans with better user experience which are more resource-to-revenue connected (see download for more details). Volubill Business System (VBS) and Volubill Network System (VNS) enable service providers to offer services that are revenue-assured, profit-optimal and economically accessible to all in the market, by:
- Segmenting services based on quota, time, bandwidth, application, traffic use, location, payment method and customer loyalty.
- Identifying, shaping and restricting session and bandwidth usage at the user-level, using combination of factors such as, congestion, peak/off-peak time bands, subscriber type/plan/quotas, applications and subscriber preferences.
- Offering data services to pre-pay, post-pay, on-demand and voucher based services – for convergent but revenue assured comprehensive market offering.
- Initiating in-line (pop-up/redirect), on-line (self-care) and off-line (messaging) advice-of-charge, service advice and service status dialogue with users – for efficient and effective revenue collection, improved customer experience and personalised service delivery.
- Prioritising applications, services or connections for tiered service plans, QoS targets, subscriber preferences and on-demand requests.
Business Models »
Segmented Services solution supports following business models and use cases:
- Charging by destination, time, data cap, message, application (e.g. P2P), VAS (e.g. VoIP, Video), Premium SMS, MMS, MMS content, time-band, personalisation, user payment method and combinations thereofMetering based on flat-subscription, event, session, throughput, pre-priced content and QoS levels
- Pre-pay, post-pay, voucher and on-demand user convergence
- Discounting based on partner, promotion or advertising
- Rating and charging based on loyalty points and history
- Account hierarchy (including parent-child) and enterprise-employee management
- White-labelling, multi-subsidiary and wholesale management
- Tiered priority based services
- On-demand, turbo and spontaneous service requests
VBS and VNS products are modular so that they can fulfil a number of different roles, suit existing operator system investments and meet evolving business models for Segmented Services and are designed specifically for high-speed implementation, low cost of ownership and targeted application deployments.
 Figure 1 - Segmented Services Solution Architecture
(Click to view)
VBS includes:
- VBS Convergent Charging, designed to orchestrate charging and credit control activity from the network against subscriber accounts held internally or externally.
- VBS Policy Manager, designed to dynamically and intelligently control network usage through real-time provisioning of subscriber-level policy and charging rules in accordance with network service usage and loads.
VNS includes :
- VNS Service Controller, designed specifically to be in-line with network traffic performing Quota Management, Service Control and Dialogue Management.
- VNS Core Controller, a router-based network system that provides real-time dynamic traffic inspection and session control with prioritisation, bandwidth and QoS management capabilities.
Volubill’s products are turnkey offerings with standardised adapters to network and service delivery platforms as well as billing, CRM and IN platforms. Volubill can also provide full subscriber, revenue and policy management capabilities for green field sites. Click here to download further information on Bill Shock Management, VBS or VNS. VBS and VNS products fulfil a number of roles to support evolving requirements and existing investments of network operators and service providers:
- End-to-end service policy management, control and enforcement through both outsourced, distributed or provisioning based interfaces
- Online Charging System (OCS) as per 3GPP standards, including optional integration with Volubill’s Policy & Charging Rules Function (PCRF)
- Active mediation of data, application and content usage with off-board accounts and balances located in legacy IN, OSS and BSS systems
- Policy and Charging Resource Function (PCRF) including integrated options for Online Charging System (OCS) and Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) according to 3GPP standards
- Intelligent AAA for Mobile Internet or Broadband service providers that enables more advanced, profitable and innovative data products, packages and delivery
- Full WiMAX CSN-level service, charging and revenue management
- Real-time revenue management solution for data services with in-line service session control and deep packet inspection (DPI) options; on-line balance management, service modelling, accounts receivable, voucher management, dialogue management, customer care/self-care and real-time rating options
- Traffic identification using in-built Deep Packet Inspection (Streaming, P2P, VoIP, messaging, browsing, download and multi-media) and Shallow Inspection (port, destination, protocol) capabilities
- Data and process correlation between disparate service controllers and platforms (e.g. AAA, SDP, DPI, GGSN/PDSN, PDN, B-RAS, ASN-GW)
- Charging and control over multiple disparate and simultaneous sessions per user
- Dynamic service definition including time, data volume, application, throughput, roaming, location, credit status, usage units, etc
- Quota allocation and re-allocation to a user service session level
- Session termination, hold and redirection
- In-line, on-line and off-line dialogue management
- On-board real time rating, balance management, account management, partner accounts, account hierarchy, self-care, CRM, accounts receivable, voucher management, credit payment and electronic billing options
- 3GPP/2 compliant interfaces including full-IMS support, RADIUS, GTP’ and Diameter interfaces
- Open standard provisioning interfaces (Web Services, SOAP & CORBA) and protocol interfaces for function outsourcing
- High-availability and telco grade systems to support multi-gigabyte carrier networks. Distributed, redundant and scalable architecture
- UDR generation for mediation and business intelligence reporting
Benefits »
Segmented Services solution with VBS and VNS products provide operators with :
- A complete, comprehensive end-to-end policy and charging control system that transcends the traditional boundaries between network, IT and business functions, to provide 360 degree control over subscribers, applications and services
- A modular capability to support existing investments in network and B/OSS infrastructure and also to enable low cost of ownership by meeting specific requirements
- 3GPP compliant OCS, PCRF and PCEF system with off-the-shelf network adapters
- Multi-network, multi-vendor and multi-service compliant systems- to enable holistic and convergent subscriber service charging
- Service leadership, innovation and profitability
- Delivered in productised fashion with best practise configurations for swift time to market
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