Policy Control and Data Charging Conference 2013 Highlights

Policy Control and Real-Time Charging Conference

15th-17th April 2013, Berlin

www.alanquayle.com/blog

© 2013 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development 1

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David Sharpley from Amdocs gave a nice review of the emergence of the evolution of the policy market. By 2017 Policy Market could be $2.4B and

dominated by a few vendors, this is the big question facing the industry, where is the growth going to come from?

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For many of these scenarios customer interaction is required, which is challenging. Turbo Boost has been shown in the Cable industry not to work, as it requires the customer to do something.

Many of these have business model issues, such as Toll Free and Free Shipping, though use cases such as ‘unlimited’ FaceBook access work in developing markets; but they are on an evolution to

customers wanting unconstrained internet access.

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In developing markets there are clear opportunities for specific packages, BUT we are starting to see a migration to traditional developed market approach of GB data plans and people

increasingly DO NOT want to be constrained to a just a few web sites, and stung on charges if they click on the link that takes them outside of Facebook. Is it just a temporary gaming of internet

access?

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Christophe Coutelle from Huawei reviewed the role of analytics in sweating the network assets

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As long as all flows of a similar type are treated equally regulatory issues can be mostly avoided, but DPI is not perfect, and some flows are missed, as we’ll

discuss later.

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This is powerful, making the network look good. Customers are paying for MBB, so make that service the best it can be.

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This use case came up in the Telco Big Data conference in Dec 2012 – impressive return on investment.

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Some called it policy on the handset, which I think is the wrong focus. Rather the operators’ self-care portal on the device can be used for promotions. I review

later an interesting use case from Ben Toner of Roke.

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Christophe showed we have much more to do in simply operating the network better.

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Cassio from Bell Canada gave an important presentation on the need to break through the data silos and present a complete and real-time view of the customer

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In doing so Telcos can finally start to have a better view of the customer.

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This is a key point, it’s a Front End integration exercise, that accesses data across the existing back-end systems. So charging finally has a view that a customer

roams often, yet goes not use data, hence make a data roaming offer the next time they land.

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Vendors have not taken that much note of UDR, when its potentially much more important than all the fancy policy ideas, and is a prerequisite for any of the Big

Data wishful thinking happening at the moment.

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SPDY is an open networking protocol developed primarily at Google for transporting web content. It has wide industry support. Given Video is the

dominant traffic type, its important to understand these changes. SSL makes DPI tougher!

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Antoine Mercer from Bouygues sums it up well, need DSC (Diameter Signaling Controller) to fixed the problems created by telco standards people not learning

from the fixed network. The Money is in the OCS!

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In practice people have no idea, for developed markets they simply buy a 1GB plan, and upgrade if that proves inadequate. Similarly with prepaid people often buy a package of data. They just want a reasonably priced package with no faff.

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Some internet-based service providers are competitors (Skype, Netflix), some are partners (Spotify). End to End QoS is not real and they know it, they care about

channel to market not QoS.

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This is terrible customer service. The customers that want tethering will be wholly pissed off at such blocking, that’s why they buy phones not controlled by

the Telco. Tethering uses more data, more data use equals more money!!! MAKE IT SIMPLE

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Turkcell’s data plans – where people are increasingly gong once they get hooked on Mobile Broadband

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Increasingly I think these application focused packages will become niche as people simply want to access their services without interference

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Customers are not dumb, once they see its cheaper to buy straight internet access rather than a constrained plan, they make the move.

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This is a great example of how developing markets are encouraging their customers to adopt MBB.

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Its all about showing how much of the data plan has been consumed – rather than the old school way of punishing for overage.

© 2013 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development 25 Great example of the importance of analytics to improve profitability

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Fixed ISPs focus on a reliable network where services simply work. They’re not engaged in a conversation. The ISP part of the offer is simply the right bundle

and communicating usage. That’s it. All the other offers are about finding ways to get people hooked on MBB.

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Great review of SDN – its complex, adds cost, and delay – its going to be many years before it breaks outside the data center into the wide area network.

© 2013 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development 28 Simple use case for intelligence on the handset to help customers

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Shira Levine from Infonetics gave a great summary of the current status – policy has got more complex, need a new deployment model.