Real-time, Agile Rating and Charging System for 5G ROI

Every customer is unique, and with increasingly sophisticated data collection tools and technologies, they expect their telecom tariffs to be equally personalized.

A traditional telecom charging system would often include a number of packages pre-defined for broad customer segments. Yet mobile tariffs today are showing increasingly customizable solutions, catering for those who want extreme data limits, limitless calls, overseas connectivity, and everything in between. 

Products not only have to be differentiated, communication service providers (CSPs) are also facing a competitively priced market with changing customer needs. Analysis of UK mobile services for example reveals that average data use has increased 266% since 2017, and minutes used increasing by 9%. Despite these dynamic changes, prices have fallen by a third.

Customers in competitive markets are used to switching tariffs, with 21% of the population having switched one of either mobile, landline, fixed broadband, or pay-TV services in the last 12 months, demonstrating the nature of the market that CSPs are facing. This is clear demonstration of an evolving telecoms landscape.

Changing customer needs, require changing phone tariffs

It’s not just CSPs facing cost challenges in 2023, growing inflationary pressures are also tightening consumer wallets. Analysis by EY places CSP responses to the cost-of-living crisis as its number one challenge for telecom operators in 2023. The EY study also notes failure to accelerate efficiencies through digitization as a major, ongoing challenge.

The importance of costing and pricing is echoed by studies from around the world. Analysis of the major reasons for customer switching behavior for switch telecoms service providers in Saudi Arabia found that offers and prices was the single most significant factor driving switching behavior. 

Neural Technologies’ adaptive charging and rating solution is designed to address this landscape, providing an adaptive charging solution built on quality data as a foundation to success. It allows CSPs to deliver responsive, adaptive charging and tariffs that can adapt to stay competitive in a rapidly changing telecoms ecosystem.

• Custom configurable product and usage-scenario setup.
• Freely definable rate-categories, rate-and-price plans.
• Time-model setup including holidays, user definable calendars, day codes and time intervals.
• Comprehensive rounding methods and currency conversion functionality.
• Hierarchical and cascading zone-models (numerical and alphanumerical best-match algorithms).
• Parallel support for multiple resources (e.g. currency, loyalty points, etc.) and multiple units (e.g. duration, volume, items etc.).
• Multi-tariff-rating allows users to calculate multiple tariffs in parallel.
• Flexible tiered, threshold, or stepped pricing definition, including add-on and minimum charges.

This functionality offers a wide range of benefits for customers in the telecoms industry and beyond.

• Secure. A secure, easily configured platform to ensure tariff structures remain secure.
• Simple. Efficient on-boarding and minimal IT resources required for maintenance. 
• Optimized for complex tariffs. Optimized for complex tariff structures such as those used in telecoms and utilities rating and charging. Automated operation allows for immediate adjustments of rates based on multiple real-time variables.
• Flexible pricing. Flexible pricing features based on usage profiles and tariff complexity. 
• Built-in revenue assurance. Integrates with our Revenue Assurance solution suite meaning no need for third-party reconciliation platforms.
• Credit scoring. Can utilize Neural Technologies’ Liquid Credit product for real-time scoring of customers, facilitating on-boarding as well as continuous payment behavior monitoring.
• Data quality assurance. Employs advanced data integration capabilities and applies quality assurance techniques to ensure that the ingested data is accurate and results in proper rating/pricing.
• Flexible dashboard. User-friendly dashboard allows admins to make changes at a glance, and easily review configuration status.
• Open API support. Simple connection to third-party platforms and business applications using a wide range of API support via open source API. Integration via a mediation layer allows other applications to integrate with the Optimus Charging-as-a-Service platform.
• Industry-agnostic. Developed to support complex tariff-based industries, and is easily applied to both public and private markets.

Our Revenue Assurance solution also helps ensure a secure, end-to-end solution to support CSPs in their billing efforts. That includes billing analysis, re-rating, invoicing that ensures charging accuracy by reconciliation with re-rated usage powered by an enterprise-grade rating module. It will verify summary billing against charged services/sub-invoices. It also integrates charging and recharge integrity validation, with end-to-end integrity check on the charging platform by balance movement reconciliations. 

This can be an important part of an effective charging solution, given that billing and collection errors cost CSPs USD4.48 billion in 2021 according to research undertaken by the Risk and Assurance Group (RAG), and charging assurance is one of the 5 areas of risk for revenue assurance that CSPs should be careful to address.

Flexible charging and rating functionalities are critical in the modern tariff landscape, allowing CSPs to adapt and meet changing ecosystem dynamics and evolving customer expectations. Our customizable, scalable, and modular solution provides a powerful platform to deliver on that need, ensuring your rating and charging services can adapt to dynamic market conditions. 

Want to find out more? Just get in touch with Neural Technologies